File Photo: Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, World Health Organization - Courtesy

The World Health Organization says there is a need for action and money to ensure coronavirus vaccines are available around the world as they get approvals for use.

During Friday’s COVID-19 briefing at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Director-General Tedros Adhanom applauded the fact Britain was already vaccinating its citizens and that Canada, the United States and others are in the process of doing the same.

“We have all seen images of people being vaccinated against COVID-19. We want to see these same images all over the world, and that will be a true sign of solidarity,” the WHO director said.

Tedros said the U.N. agency has worked hard over the past year to secure political commitments from world leaders for equal access to vaccines, calling for those commitments translated into action.

He said the WHO needs 4.3 billion US dollars to procure vaccines for the world’s neediest countries and urged donors to help fill a funding gap.

“We face an immediate funding gap of US$4.3 billion to procure vaccines for the most needy countries. I urge donors to fill this gap quickly so that vaccines can be secured, lives can be saved and a truly global economic recovery is accelerated,” he added.

Through its COVAX vaccine cooperative and the 189 countries participating, Tedros said the WHO has secured nearly a billion doses of three potential vaccines.

The director-general said the organization is working with its partners to ensure developing countries have the infrastructure in place to deliver vaccines to their populations.

The WHO says more than 66 million cases of COVID-19 and 1.5 million deaths have now been reported.

In the past six weeks, the number of weekly deaths has increased by around 60 percent.

Most cases and deaths are in Europe and the Americas.