The novel coronavirus pandemic is at a very dangerous stage at the moment, despite the global community’s successes in fighting it, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday. "While we have progress in controlling the pandemic, it remains in a very dangerous phase," the WHO chief said at a meeting of the ACT Accelerator Facilitation Council. In the current situation, "the only way out is to support countries in the equitable distribution of PPE [personal protective equipment], tests, treatments and vaccines," he continued. Ghebreyesus added that states with sufficient instruments to fight the novel coronavirus have already started to ease pandemic-related restrictions. "Meanwhile, countries without access to sufficient supplies are facing waves of hospitalizations and death," he added. Also read: Global Covid-19 incidence rises 3% over week: WHO The WHO director general also raised the issue during another event on Tuesday, while attending the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) High-Level Political Forum. In his address, Ghebreyesus noted "steep epidemic" in African, Asian and American countries. "In fact, these cases and deaths are largely avoidable," he said, calling upon the global community to "use all the tools at our disposal to prevent transmission." According to Ghebreyesus, the pandemic demonstrated that "relying on a few companies to supply global public goods is limiting and risky." "We have to learn the lessons of COVID-19," he said, calling upon the global community "to prepare for the next one." In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Also read: 'Dangerous period' with delta variant: WHO Since the start of pandemic, 183,934,913 cases have been reported worldwide, while the death toll stands at 3,985,022. The number of cases grew by 326,231 in the past 24 hours, while the number of deaths increased by 6,347. The international partnership named the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, or ACT-Accelerator, was officially launched on April 24 by the WHO, the EU, France, and philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates. As the WHO explained, the new initiative "is a unique partnership of many of the world’s international health organizations who have come together to share, and build on, individual expertise to create a powerful global solution that will ensure equity in access to tests, vaccines, treatments across the world with one goal: to reduce the burden of the COVID-19.".

The UN-backed vaccine initiative COVAX  has distributed more than 32 million doses of different vaccines to 61 countries in just one month,  the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. At the beginning of the year, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had called for countries to work together, so that all states could begin vaccinating within the first 100 days of 2021, reports UN News. “177 countries and economies have started vaccination," he said on Friday at his regular press briefing, adding that with just 15 days left before the 100 days are up, 36 countries are still waiting for vaccines so they can start inoculating health workers and older people. Waiting for jabs Of those countries, 16 are scheduled to receive their first doses from COVAX within the next 15 days, leaving 20 nations waiting. “COVAX is ready to deliver, but we can’t deliver vaccines we don’t have," said Tedros, pointing to the distorting effect of export bans and vaccine diplomacy, which have caused “gross inequities in supply and demand”. Moreover, increased demand for shots, and changes of national strategy, have led to delays in securing tens of millions of doses that COVAX was counting on. ‘Solvable problem’ Noting that getting all countries up and running by day 100, is “a solvable problem”, the UN top health official asked countries with shots cleared for WHO “Emergency Use”, to donate as many as they can as “an urgent stop-gap measure”, so the 20 additional countries can begin vaccinating their healthcare workers and elderly within the next two weeks. “COVAX needs 10 million doses immediately," he said. While acknowledging that contributing doses is “a tough political choice”, he asserted that “there are plenty of countries who can afford to donate doses with little disruption to their own vaccination plans”. More in the making Currently, many countries who had invested in COVAX in good faith have become frustrated with bilateral deals that have left the vaccine initiative short, said Tedros. “WHO and our partners are continuing to work round the clock to find ways to increase production and secure doses," he added, saying that four more inoculations were being assessed for WHO Emergency Use Listing -- at least one of which may be approved by the end of April. Seafarers and aircrew, need essential worker status In related coverage, five UN agencies on Friday advocated for prioritising Covid-19 vaccinations for seafarers and aircrews who have been severely impacted by pandemic-imposed travel restrictions. “Seafarers and aircrew need to be protected through vaccination as soon as possible to facilitate their safe movement across borders," said the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), International Labour Organization (ILO), International Maritime Organization (IMO), International Organization for Migration (IOM) and WHO, in a joint statement. As such, they called upon countries that have not done so to “designate seafarers and aircrew as key workers”. “We also call on governments to identify and prepare for the challenges of Covid-19 vaccination of seafarers and aircrew, particularly for seafarers spending long periods of time away from their home country," they added.

Noting that Covid-19 cases globally are on track to rise for a fourth week in a row, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that both virus variants and vaccine inequity are responsible for the spike.

The U.N. health agency said its global rollout of coronavirus vaccines remains unaffected even as a growing number of countries, especially in Europe, suspended use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine on Monday amid concerns about blood clots in some people who received it.

The head of the World Health Organization pleaded with rich countries on Monday to check before ordering additional COVID-19 vaccine shots for themselves whether that undermines efforts to get vaccine shots to poorer nations.

Confirming a drop in the number of Covid-19 cases globally for the fifth consecutive week, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has cautioned against complacency saying "the fire is not out" yet.

As Covid-19 cases spike in parts of Europe, Africa and the Americas, and new variants of the virus emerge in some countries, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for greater global collaboration in ending the pandemic. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that a WHO team in China is working with producers of the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines for potential emergency use listings.

An author of a withdrawn World Health Organization report into Italy’s coronavirus response warned his bosses in May that people could die and the U.N. agency could suffer “catastrophic” reputational damage if it allowed political concerns to suppress the document, according to emails seen by The Associated Press.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus sounded the alarm on Friday over the “growing perception” that the COVID-19 pandemic is over, despite exploding infection rates in some countries and enormous pressure growing on health services.