WHO’s strategic plan to tackle the covid-19 pandemic this year, launched today, contains six objectives and an estimated financing need of $ 1.96 billion, the organization’s director-general announced today.
This amount includes 1.2 billion for the ACT accelerator [iniciativa global de distribuição de vacinas], said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a press conference held at the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.
According to the same official, $ 643 million will go to people who need emergency humanitarian assistance in conflict regions.
The 2021 plan builds on last year’s and focuses on the following objectives: suppressing the transmission of the virus that causes covid-19, reducing exposure to infection, fighting disinformation, protecting the most vulnerable, reducing death and disease and accelerating access to new tools, including vaccines, diagnostics and therapies.
The doctor who directs WHO stressed that the document recognizes the need to integrate the response to covid-19 in the planning of health and development programs.
“The financing of the plan is not just an investment in responding to covid-19. It is an investment for global recovery and to improve the structure, to prevent and mitigate future health emergencies ”, he declared.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recalled that at the beginning of the year he called for action, so that the vaccination of health professionals began in all countries in the first 100 days of the year. “Tomorrow (Friday) we have reached half of that period and have made progress, but there is still a lot to do,” he warned.
“With the authorization for the emergency use of the two versions of the AstraZeneca vaccine this week, Covax is ready to distribute the vaccines and expects several manufacturers to fulfill their commitments,” he said.
“We are close to the promise of vaccine equity,” he revealed, indicating that the topic of vaccine equity will be on the agenda of the G7 meeting and the conference.
“Tomorrow [sexta-feira] we will launch a new declaration, with the support of several organizations and thousands of people, ”said the Director-General of WHO.
Groups of health professionals, international agencies, religious groups, youth and sports movements signed the declaration.
The declaration calls for action. Political leaders are asked to increase co-funding for Covax and to share doses in parallel with national vaccination plans. Manufacturers are asked to share knowledge with WHO experts to increase the global supply of vaccines.
WHO launched the first strategic plan to control the covid-19 pandemic a year ago.
“Today, we are proud to launch the strategic plan to face the disease in 2021”, said the official.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 2,430,693 deaths worldwide, resulting from more than 109.8 million cases of infection, according to a report made by the French agency AFP.
In Portugal, 15,754 people died in 792,829 confirmed cases of infection, according to the most recent bulletin from the Directorate-General for Health.
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