World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned of a “vast global gap” between funds needed to battle the months-long global coronavirus pandemic and money committed.

He added that the WHO was only “10% of the way” there in reaching its funding goals for the “Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator” (or ACT Accelerator) which was launched in April. The ACT Accelerator helps bring together governments, health organizations, scientists, businesses and philanthropists in their support for the development and distribution of vaccines and treatments needed in the fight against the coronavirus.

“We have to fundamentally scale up the way we are financing the ACT Accelerator and prioritize the use of new tools,” Tedros said during the global health agency’s media briefing in Geneva.

“While we’re grateful for those that have made contributions, we’re only 10% of the way to funding the billions required to realize the promise of the ACT Accelerator.”

The Economist Intelligence Unit, which tracks the amount of money given worldwide to fight the contagion, has stated that $9.9 billion has been pledged to date.

Tedros noted that the amount of funding needed just for vaccines is over $100 billion. While admitting that it is a considerable amount of money, the figure is “small in comparison to the $10 trillion that have already been invested by G-20 countries in fiscal stimulus to deal with the consequences of the pandemic so far,” he said.

“The coming three months present a crucial window of opportunity,” said Tedros, adding that he is seeing “green shoots of hope” in the ongoing battle against the coronavirus.

Dr. Mike Ryan, the head of WHO’s emergencies program, described the virus as “brutal” but said it can eventually be defeated.

“It’s brutal in its simplicity, it is brutal in its cruelty, but it doesn’t have a brain,” he said.

“We have the brains ... we can outsmart something that doesn’t have a brain, but we are not doing such a great job right now.”

There are now more than 20.1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide, including at least 738,000 deaths, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.
America has nearly 5.2 million confirmed infections and more than 164,000 deaths.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters