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Global Covid-19 deaths surge past 200,000
The scale of the pandemic has forced medical research on the virus to move at unprecedented speed, but effective treatments are still far away and the UN chief said the effort will require cooperation on a global scale.
The worldwide Covid-19 death toll zoomed past 200,000 on Saturday as the United Nations launched a global push for a vaccine to defeat the pandemic.
Governments around the world are struggling to limit the economic devastation unleashed by the virus, which has infected more than 2.8 million people.
The scale of the pandemic has forced medical research on the virus to move at unprecedented speed, but effective treatments are still far away and the UN chief said the effort will require cooperation on a global scale.
“We face a global public enemy like no other,” secretary-general Antonio Guterres told a virtual briefing on Friday, asking for international organisations, world leaders and the private sector to join hands. “A world free of Covid-19 requires the most massive public health effort in history.” The vaccine should be safe, affordable and available to all, Guterres stressed at the meeting, which was also attended by the leaders of Germany and France.
Notably absent from the meeting were the leaders of China, where the virus first emerged late last year, and the US, which has accused the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) of not warning quickly enough about the original outbreak.
Spain’s daily virus toll rose slightly on Saturday with 378 people dying, a day after the country registered its lowest number of deaths in four weeks.
Iran raised fears of a “fresh outbreak” with another 76 fatalities declared, bringing the country’s death toll to 5,650.
The UN General Assembly, meanwhile, is yet to decide as to how it will proceed with a secret ballot scheduled for June to elect non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, an election India will win following the endorsement of its candidature by the Asia-Pacific grouping.
Elections for the five non-permanent members of the 15-nation Council for the 2021-22 term are scheduled to be held in June. India is a candidate for a non-permanent seat in the elections this year and its victory is a given following the endorsement of its candidature by the 55-member Asia-Pacific grouping, including China and Pakistan.
