As the world looks to a vaccine and a post-COVID-19 world, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande also warned that “inclusion is key, because without inclusion the suffering of those who are already left behind, will continue — and we cannot guarantee peace in that kind of a context.”He said statements from those developing vaccines have said they intend to make them widely available which is important. “I believe that there will be protocols and agreements to guarantee affordability and accessibility to the product when it is available,” he said. Muhammad-Bande said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press that the pandemic, perhaps ironically, has defied initial predictions that developing countries would be hardest hit because many of their health systems are poorer. But what has happened, he said, is that death rates and infections are far lower in percentage terms in developing countries, including in Africa, than in the major developed countries of the world. ———PARIS -- Coronavirus cases in France increased to nearly 9,000 in the last 24 hours, health officials said Friday.

Source: Daily Sun September 04, 2020 20:48 UTC