OREANDA-NEWS. The World Health Organization (WHO) aims to provide poorer countries with vaccines, tests and drugs to fight coronavirus infection at affordable prices. The organization has developed a program to deliver a billion tests for SARS-CoV-2 to third countries, as well as medicines to treat people with a milder course of the disease, Reuters reported on Tuesday, October 19.

At the same time, the WHO representative refused to comment on the details of the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) initiative, saying only that consultations on the document to be presented to the leaders of the G20 countries on the eve of the Rome summit at the end of October are continuing. It is assumed that WHO will ask the G20 and other donors to allocate additional funds in the amount of $22.8 billion by September 2022.

The goal is to fill the huge supply gap between rich and poor countries. To date, the assistance program has secured financial support commitments of more than $18.5 billion. An agreement on additional support should be reached by the end of November.