The ACT Accelerator initiative requires $ 16 billion to end the pandemic
The World Health Organization (WHO) has appealed to the leaders of the world’s richest countries and asked them to pay their fair share of the funding needed for the agency’s program to end the global Covid-19 pandemic as soon as possible.
The agency announced on Wednesday that it needed more than $ 16 billion to bridge the funding gap for its ACT Accelerator program, and said it could end the pandemic as a global emergency in 2022.
Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) is the WHO-led initiative that unites leading authorities in an effort to provide middle- and low-income countries with the tests, vaccines, protective equipment and other medical supplies needed to curb the pandemic worldwide. .
Dr Tedro’s Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, said that the proliferation of the Omicron variant made it even more urgent to distribute medical supplies fairly around the world.
“If higher-income countries pay their fair share of ACT Accelerator costs, the partnership can support low- and middle-income countries to overcome low covid-19 vaccination levels, weak tests and drug shortages. Science has given us the tools to fight Covid-19; “they are shared globally in solidarity, we can end Covid-19 as a global health emergency this year,” he said.
The ACT Accelerator representatives have contacted all high-income countries and upper middle-income members of the G20. Their “fair share” contribution is calculated individually for each state, taking into account the private sector and philanthropic institutions. The organization noted that the six ACT-A budget countries 2020–2021 – Canada, Germany, Kuwait, Norway, Saudi Arabia and Sweden – have all fulfilled or exceeded their commitments.
According to the WHO statement, only about 22 million tests, or 0.4% of the total, were taken in low-income countries; and only 10% of the people in these countries have received at least one vaccine dose.
“This massive injustice not only costs lives, it also damages economies and risks the emergence of new, more dangerous variants that could deprive current tools of their effectiveness and even put highly vaccinated populations back many months,” the organization reported.
(RT.com)
Source: sn.dk