The World Health Organization (WHO) chief on Monday praised Germany as the biggest donor to the UN health agency.
WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus spoke at a press conference in Geneva with Germany's Economic Cooperation and Development Minister Svenja Schulze.
“The commitment to equity from Germany's is really, really big. And it's not without reason that the last two years, Germany has become the number one donor also to WHO,” said Tedros.
He said that the hub for pandemic and epidemic intelligence in Berlin will play a vital role in fostering greater sharing of data and information between countries and Germany's newly adapted program for the G7 presidency.
"Germany has made an admirable commitment to the equitable distribution of vaccines and other COVID-19 tools to help and the pandemic support for health systems strengthening in lower-income countries and bolstering the global health architecture which includes securing reliable and sustainable financing," said the WHO chief.
Tedros said that Germany's support of mRNA vaccine manufacturing in Africa coalesces with WHO's work to develop a self-sufficient vaccine production capacity.
"This is a wise investment in global security that has the potential to provide huge benefits to underserved communities."
Global campaign
Schulze said the world needs a “massively accelerated truly global vaccination campaign.”
"And we also need to strengthen health systems, particularly in the poorest countries, that will have lasting benefits even after the end of the acute phase of the pandemic. Nobody should assume that omicron will be the last variant of the virus," the German minister said.
"We know that around $20 billion will be needed this year to supply the poorer countries with vaccines, tests, and therapeutics. The G7 will play an important role in that organization for the world. We will be pushing for the world's bigger economies to contribute their fair share of that financing," she added
When asked if Germany had changed its position and that of the EU on demands by India, South Africa, and other countries for a patent waiver on vaccines during the pandemic, Schulze said the German government maintains its support for voluntary licensing as part of patent goals.
"We are convinced that patent protection encourages innovation; it led to the development of these vaccines," said the German minister.
"And we will need further innovations in order to deal with the further variants of COVID, but also the many other diseases that we have in the world, where we will need vaccines," she added./aa
