WHO: 16 billion dollars for poorer countries in the fight against Corona

The WHO estimated the gap in the budget for the supply of such states, tests and medicines to this size on Wednesday in Geneva. The money is to flow into a programme started by the United Nations. This could create a pool with 600 million vaccine doses, buy 700 million tests and enable the treatment of 120 million patients, it said.

“Science has given us the tools to fight Covid-19,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “If they are shared worldwide in solidarity, we can end Covid as a health emergency this year.” According to UN calculations, 92 per cent of the minimum total amount should come from the EU and the G20, the group of large industrialised and emerging countries.

In view of the global economic consequences of the pandemic, the $16 billion is a very manageable amount, according to WHO Ambassador for Global Health Financing, Gordon Brown. He criticised the still huge inequality in the global distribution of vaccines and the availability of tests and medicines. In the Armenian states, the vaccination rate is still low. At the same time, many millions of unused vaccine doses in the rich countries expired in the near future.