French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will champion the launch of a global initiative that aims to speed up efforts to fight COVID-19, WHO said as United States said it will not take participate.
The WHO said it will announce a “landmark collaboration” on Friday to accelerate development of safe, effective drugs, tests and vaccines to prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19.Trump
WHO spokesperson Fadela Chaib told a U.N. briefing on Friday that the President of France Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will be present at the announcement be led by W.H.O boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Diplomatic sources also reported that U.K’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Dominic Raab and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will also take part.
Elsewhere a spokesman for the U.S. mission in Geneva told international dailies that the United States would not take participate in that launch after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the WHO for being slow to react to the coronavirus outbreak. He also suspended funding to the W.H.O. because the virus originated from China.
More than 2.7 million people have been infected with the Covid-19 disease which has also claimed nearly 190,000 lives since outbreak in Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.who-covid-19-plan
Scientists are developing more than 100 potential COVID-19 vaccines including six already in clinical trials, said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI vaccine alliance.
Berkley added that global manufacturing capacity must be ramped up ahead of choosing “a winner” vaccine noting that GAVI and the World Bank were keen on the issue.
“We can’t have a repeat of what happened in 2009, the H1N1 vaccine, when there was not enough supply for developing countries or when supply did come it came much later,” he said.
