The Head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, today (13 Aug) announced that the Access to COVID-19 Tools ACT-Accelerator, launched in April “has already shown results,” with nine vaccine candidates already in its portfolio going through Phase 2 or 3 trials.”
Dr Tedros said that funding the ACT-Accelerator, a global collaboration to accelerate the development, production and equitable access to new covid-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, “will cost a tiny fraction in comparison to the alternative where economies retract further and require continued fiscal stimulus packages."
Briefing reporters in Geneva, the WHO Director-General said, “the first and most immediate need is $31.3 billion US dollars, for the ACT-Accelerator. The ACT-Accelerator is the only up and running global initiative that brings together all the global R&D, manufacturing, regulatory, purchasing and procurement needed, for all the tools required, to end the pandemic."
The WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products, Dr Mariângela Simão, said, “if you are betting on one or two candidates, we have around 200 vaccine candidates at the moment, you know? So, what's your best bet? We don't have any of the vaccine candidates has finished the clinical trials yet. So, we don't know which one will be the frontrunner, which one will actually prove to be safe and effective."
Senior Advisor Dr Bruce Aylward said countries are recognizing that “if we don't get a global solution, there's going to be waves of global fiscal stimulus financing needed to try and get out of this crisis, similar to what happened with the global financial crisis."
Aylward said, “we don't have sufficient information at this point” to make a judgment on the Russian Federation’s announcement that it has become the first country to approve a COVID-19.
He said, “we're currently in conversation with Russia to get additional information, understand the status of that product, the trials that have been undertaken and then what the next steps might be."
WHO’s COVID-19 Technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said, “there are some examples of countries that have suggested that an individual may have been re-infected. It's not still not confirmed."
WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Dr Michael Ryan said, “we've seen a plateauing of numbers,” but added that “this is like the cascades of a waterfall. You can go down one level and you think you're in calm water and you go over the next level and you're in a waterfall again, so I do think we need to be very, very careful. Calm waters do not mean the storm is over.”
Van Kerkhove said, “what we understand is that China is testing on packaging. They're looking for the virus on packaging and they've tested a few hundred thousand samples of looking on packaging and have found very, very few, less than 10 positive in doing that.”
She said, “we have issued guidance, um, with FAO on food handlers and working with food, working with frozen foods, working with live foods, to keep people safe in their working environment."
Van Kerkhove said, “we have no examples of where this virus has been transmitted as a foodborne, where someone has consumed a food product."
According to the latest WHO COVID-19 situation report, there are 20,439,814 confirmed cases worldwide, leading to 744,385 deaths.
