FILE PHOTO: World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference organized by Geneva Association of United Nations Correspondents (ACANU) amid the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by the novel coronavirus, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva Switzerland July 3, 2020. Fabrice Coffrini/Pool via REUTERS
GENEVA (Reuters) – World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday the world must be better prepared for the next pandemic, as he called on countries to invest in public health.
More than 27.19 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 888,326 have died, according to a Reuters tally, since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.
“This will not be the last pandemic,” Tedros told a news briefing in Geneva. “History teaches us that outbreaks and pandemics are a fact of life. But when the next pandemic comes, the world must be ready – more ready than it was this time.”
Reporting by Emma Farge and Michael Shields; Editing by Alex Richardson