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Covid donation to World Health Organisation is put to use

In just over five weeks since it was launched, the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund has raised almost $200 million to support the World Health Organization’s global response efforts to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund has been initiated to raise money to support the work to prevent, detect, and respond to the pandemic. In mid-March the H&M Foundation made a donation of USD 500,000 to the fund.

The fund is currently focusing on:

  • Ensuring patients get the care they need, and front line workers get personal protective equipment and critical equipment to do their lifesaving work without putting their own health at risk,
  • Helping countries, especially those with fewer resources, expand their healthcare capacity and reduce the impact of the virus, particularly amongst the most vulnerable,
  • Speeding up progress towards a vaccine that everyone can get.

Since its launch in March, the fund has disbursed more than $50 million to key partners — more than $30 million to World Health Organization (WHO), $10 million to UNICEF, and $10 million to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Response (CEPI) — to accelerate vaccine development, equip front line workers with lifesaving gear, and protect the most vulnerable children and families across the planet from the socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic.

By early April, WHO has been able to purchase and ship more than 2 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) – including masks, gloves, overalls – to 133 countries, with shipments of an additional 2.8 million pieces of PPE to another 79 countries ongoing. The agency has also shipped testing supplies to 126 countries and enrolled more than 1.2 million people in online training courses about preventing, detecting, and treating the virus. WHO has also used funds to develop and publish a research and development roadmap, with a set of core protocols for how studies should be done.

WHO is working to ensure all countries can prevent, detect, and respond to the pandemic. Read more and support WHO’s efforts.