SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

Peace in Palestine = Peace in the World

ADVERTISEMENT

SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

World Leaders Join Global Collaboration Against Pandemic

Nidiya Fitriyah - Saturday, 25 April 2020 - 13:06 WIB

Saturday, 25 April 2020 - 13:06 WIB

0 Views ㅤ

Geneva, MINA – The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday launched a global collaboration against COVID-19 with leaders from France, Germany and the EU among others.

“Today, WHO is proud to be uniting with many partners to launch the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, or the ACT Accelerator,” said the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“This is a landmark collaboration to accelerate the development, production and equitable distribution of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics for COVID-19,” he said at the event which drew representatives from the public, private, and non-governmental sectors.

According to Anadolu Agency, the event was co-sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest non-profit organization.

Also Read: Boston Consulting Group Withdraws From Controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

The aim of the collaboration was explained by Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, who will lead a pledging conference on May 4.

Von der Leyen said: “This campaign is to kick off an ongoing rolling replenishment. The aim is to raise €7.5 billion [$8 billion] to ramp up work on prevention diagnostics and treatment. And this is a first step, only, but more will be needed in the future.”

She invited “everyone, governments, business leaders, philanthropists, artists, and citizens to raise awareness about the pledging effort and to help create a united front against the novel coronavirus.

Absent from the video conference from around the world were leaders from China, where the novel coronavirus first appeared late last year, and also the United States.

Also Read: Spain Scraps $325 Million Missile Deal with Israel in Protest of Gaza War

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said, “I would like to pay tribute to the healthcare workers who were fighting against COVID-19 every day, as well as to the researchers that are working around the world either from the public sector or the private sector and also to those from the humanitarian sector, from the United Nations or those from NGOs.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is the current chair of the African Union, said, “The world needs solidarity and cooperation to mobilize and guide, all efforts and drive delivery towards equitable access to new COVID-19 diagnostics therapeutics and vaccines.”

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “The world needs the development, production and equitable delivery of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine, therapeutics and diagnostics.

“Not a vaccine or treatments for one country or one region or one-half of the world, but a vaccine and treatment that are affordable, safe, effective, easily-administered and universally available, for everyone, everywhere. None of us is safe until all of us are safe.”

Also Read: Monsoon Rains Devastate Rohingya Camps in Cox’s Bazar, Over 1,400 Homes Damaged

Germany’s Angela Merkel noted that there were some countries in which the COVID-19 virus had been particularly virulent.

“We will have to develop new methods, trying new approaches, globally, for example, to ramp up the production capacities in many different countries around the world.”

The novel virus has claimed more than 191,000 lives globally and infected an upward of 2.72 million others, according to US-based Johns Hopkins University.(T/R3/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) 

Also Read: Spain Cancels Israeli Missile Deal, Moves to Sever Military Ties with Israel

Recommendation for you

Israeli attacks on Gaza Kill Palestinians (photo: Anadolu Agency)
Palestine
Humanitarian crisis ini Gaza (photo: Anadolu Agency)
Palestine
Al-Awda Hospital in Northern Gaza (photo: Anadolu Agency)
Palestine
Palestinian Victims of Israeli Aggression on Gaza (photo: Anadolu Agency)
Palestine