World leaders launch plan to speed up COVID-19 drugs, vaccine
World leaders pledged to accelerate work on tests, drugs and vaccines against COVID-19 and to share them around the globe.
However, the United States did not take part in the launch of the World Health Organisation (WHO) initiative.
French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa were among those who joined a video conference to launch what the WHO billed as a ‘landmark collaboration’ to fight the pandemic.
WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a UN briefing on Friday that Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would take part in the 1300 GMT announcement, led by WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
British foreign minister Dominic Raab and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are also to take part, diplomatic sources told Reuters.
“Today is a kind of political commitment from all these partners to make sure that when we have all these new tools no one is left behind, that those who can afford vaccines or therapeutics can buy them and (put) them at the disposal of the population,” Chaib said.
More than 2.7 million people have been infected with the disease, which has claimed nearly 190,000 lives since emerging in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
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