WHO Chief Lauds German Support For Fight Against COVID-19

Posted by Eric Ojo Europe, Featured, Latest Headlines Tuesday, October 26th, 2021

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Director-General of World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has commended the German Government for its generosity and support for the COVID-19 vaccination programme.

So far, Germany, with 66.2 per cent of its population fully vaccinated, has contributed with €2.2 billion (2.56 billion dollars), and by the end of the year more than 100 million doses of vaccine are to be donated by the German government.

In addition, Germany is the second largest donor within the ACT-A anti-pandemic cooperation, which also includes COVAX, according to the German Minister of Health, Jens Spahn.

Dr. Ghebreyesus gave the commendation at the ongoing World Health Summit in Berlin, the German capital. He said with almost 50,000 deaths per week, the pandemic is far from over.

The World Health Summit started on Sunday and will continue until Tuesday, also in a digital format. It deals, among other things, with lessons learned from the coronavirus pandemic

He thanked Germany for its generosity, adding that more was needed. He also noted that countries that have already achieved a vaccination rate of at least 40 per cent, including all G20 countries, should let the UN vaccination programme COVAX or the African initiative AVAT take the lead in supplying vaccines.

“No country can end the pandemic in isolation from the rest of the world”, he said.

The WHO chief further called on wealthier countries to stand back on coronavirus vaccine supplies for the benefit needier countries. “The pandemic will end when the world chooses to end it”, he added.

Dr. Ghebreyesus recalled the WHO target of at least 40 per cent of the population in every country to be vaccinated by the end of the year. “That target is reachable”, he stressed.