The United States on Thursday said it would resume its funding of the UN’s health agency as President Joe Biden shifts towards greater international cooperation in the fight against COVID-19. On his first day in the job, Biden despatched his top expert Anthony Fauci to Switzerland and confirmed he had reversed the decision of former president Donald Trump to quit the World Health Organisation. Virus cases are approaching 100 million globally, with more than two million deaths and many millions — from Beijing to Berlin — still living under lockdowns, curfews or other restrictions.
More contagious coronavirus variants have travelled quickly around the globe, tempering optimism that mass vaccination campaigns would bring a swift end to the worst phase of the pandemic.
And the WHO has repeatedly warned that richer countries are hogging the vaccine, a point underscored by data from Africa suggesting the second wave is proving far more deadly than the first.
John Nkengasong of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said more infections meant more pressures on ill-equipped health systems, adding: “That also means you’re overwhelming the ability of nurses, doctors to manage patients.”
However, the US provided a boost to efforts to share out vaccines across the world by announcing it intended to join the Covax initiative, a pool of doses supplied by countries and companies.
source: Punch
