The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for countries around the world to pull together more than half a billion pounds to stop China’s coronavirus.
Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, the director of the organisation, yesterday held a conference at which he called for donations totalling £521million ($675m).
More than 28,000 people have now been infected with the coronavirus in China, as well as 260 in other countries, and 565 have died.
The WHO money will be used for ‘frontline efforts’ to help countries contain the virus and to fund scientists trying to create a vaccine, as well as helping poor countries – potentially African nations – to prepare for possible infections.
Dr Ghebreyesus’s rallying call comes as a leading statistician in the UK predicts another 3,000 people in China could die of the virus by the end of the month.
Dr Brian Jarman, a retired doctor and former president of the British Medical Association, said 199,000 people could have been infected by February 29.
Dr Jarman, whose statistics work helped expose the NHS Mid-Staffordshire scandal which found death rates were higher than official figures showed, said he found the rate of the coronavirus spreading ‘very worrying’ because people appear not to know they are infecting others.
‘We are requesting 675 million US dollars to fund the plan for the next three months,’ Dr Ghebreyesus said.
‘Sixty million of that is to fund WHO’s operations; the rest is for the countries that are especially at risk and who need our support.
‘Our message to the international community is “invest today or pay more later”.
It is not clear which countries Dr Ghebreyesus was referring to, but the WHO has in the recent past suggested African nations could be devastated if the virus were to spread to the continent. There have not yet been any confirmed cases in any African countries.
He added: ‘My biggest worry is that there are countries today who do not have the systems in place to detect people who have contracted with the virus, even if it were to emerge.”
Daily Mail