Thread by @WHO

Don't miss @DrTedros' closing remarks at the #GlobalHealthSummit ⬇️

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1395731483663470598?s=20

"When the #COVID19 pandemic erupted over a year ago, we faced a fundamental challenge:
We knew that 💉, rapid diagnostics & therapeutics were on the way, but we knew from experience that market forces alone would leave the 🌍’s poorest & most vulnerable people behind"-@DrTedros

"Today we can prevent #COVID19 anywhere with new vaccines.
We can detect it anywhere with new rapid tests.
We can save lives everywhere with oxygen & dexamethasone.
We have a unique mechanism for making these life-saving tools available everywhere: the @ACTAccelerator"-@DrTedros

"We have demonstrated that the @ACTAccelerator works: we have shipped 70 million vaccines to 125 countries and economies, as well as hundreds of millions of tests and supplies of oxygen and dexamethasone"-@DrTedros #GlobalHealthSummit

"But as we all know, vaccine nationalism, vaccine diplomacy and severe supply constraints have left us with a yawning chasm between the world’s vaccine haves and have nots"-@DrTedros #GlobalHealthSummit

"It is not just vaccines. Low-income countries are testing at rates up to 100 times lower than in high-income countries.

Many low- and middle-income countries are also experiencing devastating shortages of oxygen and other essential therapeutics"-@DrTedros #GlobalHealthSummit

"The @ACTAccelerator and #COVAX were created to address these market failures"-@DrTedros #GlobalHealthSummit

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1395768572027211778?s=20

"We now have an opportunity to fix the global imbalance:
1⃣we need to close the $18.5 billion funding gap for the @ACTAccelerator.
2⃣we need countries to donate vaccines immediately through #COVAX – which is the agreed global mechanism for distributing vaccines"-@DrTedros

"We welcome the generous announcements made today, and in the coming weeks and months, we will need hundreds of millions more doses. And we need companies to help make donations happen fast, by giving COVAX the first right of refusal on all uncommitted doses by 2021"-@DrTedros

"3⃣ we must urgently and dramatically scale up production of all of these tools, through voluntary licensing, sharing technology and know-how, and waiving intellectual property rights"-@DrTedros #GlobalHealthSummit

"We are at a critical juncture. The @ACTAccelerator is a historic, forward-thinking initiative based on the principles of solidarity and equity. But we have not yet achieved what we set out to achieve"-@DrTedros #GlobalHealthSummit

"We must harness the same urgency with which vaccines, tests and treatments were developed to distribute them as far and fast as possible.

Let’s finish the job we started"-@DrTedros #GlobalHealthSummit