World leaders pledged on Friday to accelerate work on tests, drugs and vaccines against COVID-19 and to share them around the globe, but the United States did not take part in the launch of the World Health Organization (WHO) initiative.
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization and other world leaders about the coronavirus outbreak during a video conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, April 24, 2020. Christophe Ena/Pool via REUTERS
“We are facing a common threat which we can only defeat with a common approach,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as the virtual meeting got under way. “This is a first step only, but more will be needed in the future,” von der Leyen told the conference. Leaders from Asia, the Middle East and the Americas also joined the videoconference, but a spokesman for the U.S. mission in Geneva had earlier told Reuters that the United States would not be involved.
Tedros has steadfastly defended the WHO’s handling of the pandemic and repeatedly committed to conducting a post-pandemic evaluation, as the agency does with all crises.More than 2.7 million people have been infected with COVID-19 and nearly 190,000 have died from it since the new coronavirus emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, according to a Reuters tally.
Global manufacturing capacity must be ramped up ahead of choosing “a winner” vaccine, Berkley said, noting that GAVI and the World Bank were looking at 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.”
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