$100b dollars needed to ensure access to COVID-19 vaccine- WHO
Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Ghebreyesus has stated that more than 100 billion dollars will be required to ensure everyone globally can access the tools to fight COVID-19.
Ghebreyesus stated this during a virtual news conference in Geneva.
“This sounds like lots of money and it is.
“But it is small in comparison to the 10 trillion dollars that have already been invested by G20 countries in fiscal stimulus. to deal with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic so far.”
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He further stressed that the next three months will be critical to scaling up the work of the ACT-Accelerator, a WHO-sponsored global collaboration to accelerate development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines.
“we have to fundamentally scale up the way we are financing the ACT-Accelerator and prioritise the use of new tools”
“We are only 10 per cent of the way to funding the billions required to realise the promise of the ACT Accelerator,” he said.
The World Health Organization had earlier announced that the COVID-19 vaccines had entered stage 3 of clinical trials. While there is no definitive indication that the vaccines are edging closer to approval, the Director-General has given laconic projection as to what it will cost to procure the vaccines worldwide.
