The World Health Organization is seeking $11.5 billion in urgent funding to fight the more infectious delta variant of the coronavirus, a draft report shows, amid worries that wealthy nations are partly bypassing its COVID-19 programs.
A large portion of the cash being requested from the WHO's partners is needed to buy tests, oxygen and face masks in poorer nations, says the document, which is expected to be released this week. And a quarter of it would be to buy hundreds of millions of vaccines for them that would otherwise go elsewhere.
The paper, still subject to changes, outlines the results and financial needs of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A), the program co-led by the WHO to fairly distribute COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and tests across the world.