An additional $16 billion is needed to help poor countries fight the corona pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday. According to the WHO, such is the gap in the budget to provide these countries with sufficient vaccines, tests, and medicines.
“Science has given us the tools to fight Covid-19; if they are shared globally in solidarity, we can end Covid-19 this year as a global health emergency,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. According to UN calculations, 92 percent of the total contribution needed should be coughed up by the EU and the G20.
Gordon Brown, the WHO ambassador for global health financing, said $16 billion was a manageable amount given the global economic impact of the pandemic. However, Brown criticized the continuing huge disparity in the global distribution of vaccines and the availability of tests and drugs. He pointed to low vaccination coverage in poor countries, while millions of unused doses are expected to be lost in rich countries.
The WHO has set a target for 70 percent of the world’s population to be vaccinated by the middle of the year.
