WHO's "Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator" faces 35-bln-dollar funding gap: WHO chief

GENEVA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The "Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator" (ACT-Accelerator), a global collaboration led by the World Health Organization (WHO) to accelerate the development, production and equitable deployment of COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, still faces a funding gap of 35 billion U.S. dollars, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said here on Thursday.

At a press briefing, Tedros said that to date the ACT-Accelerator has received 2.7 billion dollars, which -- though "generous and has enabled the robust start-up phase" -- is still only less than 10 percent of the overall needs.