WHO launches effort for €7.5bn coronavirus fund

The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced a multibillion-pound “call to action” for a global response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The programme and its €7.5bn (￡6.5bn) fundraising effort will be officially launched on 4 May.

WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Access to Covid Tools (ACT) Accelerator programme would call on international experts and governments to unite and speed up access to safe, affordable and universally available vaccines and therapeutics.

Tedros said:

“Past experience has taught us that even when tools are available, they have been not been equally available to all - but we cannot allow that to happen.

Today, the WHO is proud to be uniting with many partners to launch the Access to Covid Tools Accelerator.

The virtual conference also heard all new vaccines, diagnostics and treatments against coronavirus must be made equally available to everyone worldwide.

The WHO call comes as it launches a “landmark collaboration” to speed the development of effective drugs, tests and vaccines to prevent and treat Covid-19, with Tedros warning the disease is a “common threat which we can only defeat with a common approach”. He said:

Experience has told us that even when tools are available they have not been equally available to all. We cannot allow that to happen.”

European commission president Ursula von der Leyen also told the virtual conference that the effort to raise €7.5bn was to ramp up work on prevention, diagnostics and treatment. “This is a first step only, but more will be needed in the future,” she said.