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 The WHO said late on Thursday it would to announce a "landmark
collaboration" on Friday to speed development of safe, effective
drugs, tests and vaccines to prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19.
WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a U.N. briefing on Friday that
Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would
take part in the 1300 GMT announcement, led by WHO director-general
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
British foreign minister Dominic Raab and U.N. Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres are also to take part, diplomatic sources told
Reuters.
"Today is a kind of political commitment from all these partners to
make sure that when we have all these new tools no one is left
behind, that those who can afford vaccines or therapeutics can buy
them and (put) them at the disposal of the population," Chaib said.
"It is very important to make sure that you have equitable access to
quality, efficient, new tools for COVID-19," she said.
More than 2.7 million people have been infected with the disease,
which has claimed nearly 190,000 lives since emerging in the central
Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, according to a Reuters tally.
More than 100 potential COVID-19 vaccines are being developed,
including six already in clinical trials, said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO
of the GAVI vaccine alliance, a public-private partnership that
leads immunisation campaigns in poor countries.
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"We need to ensure that there are enough vaccines for everyone, we are going to
need global leadership to identify and prioritise vaccine candidates," he told a
separate Geneva news briefing before taking part in the formal WHO announcement.
Global manufacturing capacity must be ramped up ahead of choosing "a winner"
vaccine, Berkley said, noting that GAVI and the World Bank were looking at the
issue.
"We can't have a repeat of what happened in 2009, the H1N1 vaccine, when there
was not enough supply for developing countries or when supply did come it came
much later," he said.
Another important questions was how well a vaccine would work in people most at
risk from COVID-19, Berkley said.
"How well do they work in the elderly, are they single or multiple dose etc?" he
said, noting that older people had weaker immune systems.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Michael Shields in Zurich; writing
by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Nick Macfie)
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