UN Secretary General calls for $35bn in funding for WHO Covid-19 plan

The United Nation’s Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said on Thursday that countries should help raise $35bn to fund the World Health Organisation's Covid-19 programme.

The funding will go to the World Health Organization’s ACT-Accelerator programme that supports vaccines, treatments and diagnostics against coronavirus.

Some $3bn has been contributed by countries so far, Guterres told an online event on Thursday, calling it “seed funding”. But he said that $15bn should be raised in the next three months.

“We now need $35bn more to go from ‘start up’ to ‘scale up and impact’,” he said. “There is real urgency in these numbers. Without an infusion of $15 billion over the next three months, beginning immediately, we will lose the window of opportunity.”