For the first time since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, China has reported no domestic cases.
World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus made the announcement on Thursday when he gave a global update on the Coronavirus pandemic.
Ghebreyesus described China’s success as “an amazing achievement”.
According to the WHO, there are now more than 200 000 cases of COVID-19, and more than 8 000 deaths worldwide.
In support of affected countries, WHO has shipped personal protective equipment (PPE) to 68 countries and shipped 1.5 million diagnostic kits to 120 countries.
The focus on diagnostics and PPE, comes amid a flow of requests from many countries as they move to test and tackle the outbreak in their countries.
“We have a list of agreed suppliers in China now, and they have permission to export to WHO. We’re now finalising the arrangements.
“We’ve identified producers with over-capacity, we’re finalising specifications, and coordinating shipments so we can refill our warehouse to ship PPE to whoever needs it most. Our aim is to build a continuous pipeline to ensure continuity of supply,” said Ghebreyesus.
On diagnostics, WHO says while there are many companies that produce diagnostic kits it can only buy kits that have been evaluated independently.
“We have worked with FIND to significantly increase capacity for evaluation by contracting additional labs to do the evaluation. In parallel, we’re working with companies to secure supply,” said Ghebreyesus.
Search for COVID-19 vaccine
On research and development, WHO and its partners are organising a study in several countries in which untested treatments are compared with each other.
“We call this the SOLIDARITY trial. We thank those countries that have already joined and we look forward to other countries joining too.
“The number of countries joining this global trial is increasing, and we hope that it will involve more countries from all regions and will help us to get better results soon,” said Ghebreyesus.
The hunt for a vaccine has kicked off with the first vaccine trial starting just two months after the genetic sequence of the virus was shared.
“…Which is an unprecedented scientific triumph, and the first person was enrolled in the trial in the U.S., thanks to NIH, two days ago, and we hope this will help us as an additional solution in the fight against COVID-19,” said Ghebreyesus.