UNITED NATIONS, March 25. /TASS/. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres announced Wednesday that the United Nations launch a global humanitarian coronavirus response plan in the developing nations. The $2 billion plan aims to protect millions of people and prevent the coronavirus from circling the globe, the Secretary General explained as he presented the plan during a video conference.
The plan, outlined in an 80-page document, includes aid points on specific nations, including Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Mali, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and a number of other nations.
It implies delivery of various medical goods, equipment of temporary residence camps with sanitary hand washing installations, as well as launch of information campaigns that will explain coronavirus prevention methods. Air routes and transport hubs will be established to deliver humanitarian workers to regions where they are needed the most. The plan will be implemented by the UN and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
"The world is only as strong as the weakest health system," Guterres warned. "If we leave coronavirus to spread freely in these places, we would be placing millions at high risk, whole regions will be tipped into chaos and the virus will have the opportunity to circle back around the globe."
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock noted that the coronavirus has already fundamentally changed life in the most successful countries of the world.
COVID-19 has already upended life in some of the world’s wealthiest countries. It is now reaching places where people live in warzones, cannot easily access clean water and soap, and have no hope of a hospital bed if they fall critically ill," he said. ""Our priority is to help these countries prepare and continue helping the millions who rely on humanitarian assistance from the UN to survive."
In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in more than 150 countries, including Russia.
On March 11, WHO declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a global pandemic. As of now, over 410,000 people have been infected around the world and more than 18,000 have died. Russia has identified 658 cases, 29 patients have recovered.