World News

UN heads COVID-19 | the world in the “war” against the Coronavirus pandemic News

Antonio Guterres called on countries to apply “wartime logic” to tackling the virus that has killed 3.4 million people.

The world is “at war” against COVID-19, the head of the UN says he has called for the application of wartime logic in an inappropriate way to acquire the weapons needed to deal with the pandemic.

As the annual assembly of member states of the World Health Organization opened on Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced the “tsunami of suffering” caused by the coronavirus crisis.

He noted that more than 3.4 million people have died and 500 million jobs have disappeared since the disease first appeared in China in late 2019.

“The weakest suffer the most, and I’m afraid that is about to end,” Guterres said, stressing the continuing dangers of a “two-speed global response”.

“Unfortunately, if we don’t act now, we are faced with a situation where rich countries are inserting the majority of the people and opening up the economy, while the virus continues to cause deep suffering by rotating and mutating in the poorest countries,” he said.

“Further increases and increases could result in hundreds of thousands of lives and slow down the global economic recovery,” he said, stressing that “COVID-19 cannot be beaten every country at once”.

Faced with this dire situation, Guterres called for recognition that “we are at war with a virus”.

“We need the logic and necessity of a war economy to strengthen our arms capacity,” he said.

The UN chief last week called on the G20 to form a group of all countries with the capacity to produce the vaccine and another group that could help boost the manufacture of vaccines with other tools needed to combat COVID-19.

“There should be at least a doubling of manufacturing capacity by exploring all options, including voluntary licensing and technology transfers, patent unification, and the flexibility of intellectual property rights,” he said.

The team should focus on the fair distribution of vaccines, treatments and diagnoses.

The WHO and others have created COVAX, a global vaccine-sharing program, but it remains poorly funded and has experienced a significant supply shortage, delaying efforts to expand owners in poor countries.

To date, only 0.3% of all doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered are in the world’s poorest countries, where almost 10% of the world’s population lives.

In addition to addressing COVID-19, Guterres stressed the importance of preparing for the next pandemic, supporting the various recommendations put before the Assembly for reform and consolidation of the WHO and the general health system.

“The world needs political commitment to transform the system at the highest level,” he said.

“The WHO must be at the heart of global pandemic preparedness. It needs sustainable and predictable resources, and it must have full capacity to do the work required of it.”

Guterres called on member states to “decide on the way to make the bold decisions needed to end this pandemic”.

“COVID-19 should be a turning point.”




Source link

Related Articles

Back to top button