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With the number of new COVID-19 cases nearly doubling over the past two months, approaching the highest infection rate the world has seen during the pandemic, the unequal distribution of vaccines is not only a moral outrage, but economically and epidemiologically self-defeating, the head of the UN health agency told a special ministerial meeting of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Friday.

The COVID-19 pandemic is leading to “an even more unequal world”, the Deputy UN chief said on Thursday, speaking at the closing session of the Financing for Development (FfD) Forum, with many lower-income countries now seeing development gains reversed.  

Deliberations throughout the four-day long forum highlighted the “full scope” of the COVID impact, said UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed. 

A lack of new treatments for common infections has left people dangerously exposed to the “world’s most dangerous bacteria”, the UN health agency said on Thursday. 

Violence attributed to Israeli settlers against Palestinians living in the West Bank has worsened in recent months, amidst “an atmosphere of impunity”, UN-appointed independent rights experts said on Wednesday.

Highlighting more than 210 incidents already this year and one Palestinian fatality, the Special Rapporteurs urged the Israeli authorities to investigate thoroughly, maintaining that the Israeli military were present “in many cases”.

Almost half of women in some 57 countries do not have the power to make choices over their healthcare, contraception, or sex lives, a new United Nations report launched on Wednesday, has revealed.

Faced with alarming and extended closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s museums are of “fundamental importance” to reviving cultural life and preserving our shared heritage “in all its diversity”, said the UN cultural agency chief on Tuesday.  

According to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the entire cultural sector has been severely affected by the pandemic, with museums hit particularly hard. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) and partners have called for countries to suspend sales of live wild mammals in traditional food markets, also known as “wet markets”, in efforts to prevent the emergence of new deadly diseases, such as COVID-19. 

The growing complexities of the world drug problem are hampering efforts to achieve sustainable development by the end of the decade: a situation which the COVID-19 pandemic has only compounded, the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said on Monday. 

A “paradigm shift” aligning the private sector with the global goals is needed to address the challenges of the future, including those triggered by COVID-19, the UN chief said on Monday, addressing the Financing for Development (FfD) Forum. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is “a long way from over” but there are many reasons to be optimistic and it’s possible the pandemic can be brought under control “within months”, the head of the UN health agency said on Monday. 

Although January and February saw six consecutive weeks of plummeting COVID-19 cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief said that had gone into reverse, with last week yielding “the fourth-highest number of cases in a single week so far”.