WHO chief calls Covid-19 pledging success 'powerful and inspiring'

The 7.4 billion euros (8.07 billion dollars) that was pledged at Monday's international Covid-19 donor conference is a strong sign of international unity to fight the pandemic, UN health chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says.

"This was a powerful and inspiring demonstration of global solidarity," the World Health Organization (WHO) chief says about the money that was raised to speed up the development and production of vaccines, tests and medicines against the novel coronavirus disease.

Tedros stresses, however, that the these medical tools must be made available to poor as well as rich countries.

"None of us can accept a world in which some people are protected while others are not," Tedros tells an online press conference from Geneva. "None of us are safe until all of us are safe," he adds.