"EPIDEMICS"

The Global Financial Stability Report’s January forecast stated that the approval and rollout of vaccines have boosted expectations of a global recovery and lifted risk asset prices, despite rising COVID-19 cases and persistent uncertainties surrounding the economic outlook. IMF

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros said, "a year ago today, fewer than 1,500 cases of COVID-19 had been reported to WHO, including just 23 cases outside China. This week, we expect to reach 100 million reported cases." WHO

Together with the Government of Burkina Faso, UNICEF and Enfants du Monde, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) – the global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises – launched a new multi-year programme that aims to provide education to over 800,000 children and adolescents in crisis-affected regions of the country. ECW

COVAX, the global initiative to ensure rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries, regardless of income level, today announced the signing of an advance purchase agreement with Pfizer for up to 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine candidate, which has already received WHO emergency use listing. WHO

In a visit this week to Ituri and North Kivu provinces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), UN OCHA Director of Operations, Reena Ghelani, said that sufficient resources were urgently required to step up aid and provide lifesaving assistance and protection for almost 20 million people facing humanitarian emergency in the country. OCHA

Briefing by Brenden Varma, Spokesperson for the President of the 75th Session of the General Assembly.

Resolutions calling on withdrawal of forces from Crimea, establishing epidemic preparedness international day among texts adopted by General Assembly.

WHO warned on Friday that those countries with current high levels of coronavirus transmission, “are going to have to sustain very strong control measures.” Otherwise, the COVID-19 “will blow out of control” in some countries and they will risk “ongoing epidemic yo-yo situation through 2021.” WHO

The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, proposed working on a treaty to deal with future pandemics to structure the world’s “collective capacity to anticipate, prepare for and manage such crises.” UNIFEED

In a new report, UNAIDS called on countries to “make far greater investments in global pandemic responses and adopt a new set of bold, ambitious but achievable HIV targets. If those targets are met, the world will be back on track to ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.” UNIFEED