(3 minutes read)
· World leaders have come together to fight against Covid-19
and pledged US$ 8 billion for research, manufacture of a vaccine and
for evolving treatment protocol
· The United Nations announced that it is sending another
appeal to countries and agencies to fight the coronavirus pandemic in
fragile and vulnerable countries from US$2 billion to US$6.7 billion.
World leaders have come together to fight against Covid-19 and
pledged US$ 8 billion for research, manufacture of a vaccine and for
evolving treatment protocol. While a clearer picture has to emerge as
to where these resources will be mobilized, world leaders are
confident that it can be raised within the stipulated time. It is
reported that the corpus will come from sources such as equity, loans
and grants from governments and institutions. Countries like Britain
have already committed funds for the vaccine. World leaders are also
trying to convince the US to be in the group. The US ad earlier stated
that it would not cooperate in the project, charging the WHO in
failing to take adequate steps to prevent the contagion well in time.
The WHO refuted the charge telling that it had given alert to all
nations to take precautionary steps.
In the meantime, the United Nations announced that it is sending
another appeal to countries and agencies to fight the coronavirus
pandemic in fragile and vulnerable countries from US$2 billion to
US$6.7 billion.
U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said that the peak of the
pandemic is not expected to hit the world’s poorest countries for some
time ranging from three to six months. Notwithstanding that, there are
reports about income plummeting and the informal workers are hard
pressed to find livelihood in the event of full or partial lockdown in
those countries. Along with supply side bottlenecks of the food
articles, prices are increasing and children are missing vaccination
and meals.
The UN had already raised US $1 billion to support efforts across 37
fragile countries to tackle COVID-19. The new appeal issued by the UN
had added nine more countries, including Benin, Djibouti, Liberia,
Mozambique, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Togo and
Zimbabwe. The U.N. food agency , WFP (World Food Programme) helps
nearly 100 million people on any given day and is engaged in
continuing with the effort more vigorously to ward off a hunger
pandemic as a fallout of the Covid-19, which have rendered millions
unemployed.
