'World cannot put all eggs in one basket': WHO chief Tedros 'encouraged' by coronavirus clinical trials
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
As the coronavirus cases across the world continue to rise, World Health Organization(WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said today that the UN health body is encouraged by "preliminary results of clinical trials released this week."
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The WHO chief was referring to Pfizer and BioNTech who had announced their vaccine had proved 90 per cent effective in final phase trials involving over 40,000 people.
"Never in history has vaccine research progressed so quickly. We must apply the same urgency and innovation to ensure that all countries benefit from this scientific achievement," Tedros said, adding," I urge all countries to follow Thailand’s lead. No country can say it was well-enough prepared for COVID-19, or that it has no lessons to learn."
Pfizer's potential coronavirus vaccine is likely to be a two-dose treatment as the world impatiently awaits a cure for the virus which has already killed over 1.3 million people while infected over 52 million worldwide.
"But we have a long way to go. The world cannot put all its eggs in one basket, and neglect the many other tools at our disposal that countries like Thailand have shown are effective for bringing this virus under control," the WHO chief asserted.
"The virus itself has not changed significantly, and nor have the measures needed to stop it."
However, Tedros reiterated that the World Health Assembly has at times been used for "political purposes that divide, rather than to focus on shared health challenges".
"The COVID-19 pandemic has also shown that there is an urgent need for a globally agreed system for sharing pathogen materials and clinical samples, to facilitate the rapid development of medical countermeasures as global public goods," Tedros asserted.