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World leaders, scientists, humanitarians and private sector partners united on Friday in “a landmark collaboration” that will make new tools and medicines to diagnose and treat COVID-19, accessible to people everywhere.

The virtual launch of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, saw participation from all corners of the planet to boost commitment and support for the production of  diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines to save lives from an unprecedented enemy.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that there is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection. 

Last year, over 13 million children received no vaccines at all, and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is calling on governments to step up, warning disrupting immunization services amid the COVID-19 pandemic could leave even more of the world’s most marginalized children without access to life-saving vaccines. 

The COVID-19 outbreak has translated into a major education crisis. Nearly 190 countries have imposed school closures, affecting 1.5 billion children and young people, according to a UN report launched by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week.

The coronavirus pandemic is not only a critical public health danger, it is also a human, economic and social emergency that is “fast becoming a human rights crisis”, the UN chief said on Thursday, releasing a new policy brief on shaping an effective, inclusive response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against complacency as countries continue to confront COVID-19 and citizens grow weary of stay-at-home measures aimed at preventing the spread of the disease.

Speaking on Wednesday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reported that most countries are still in the very early stages of their epidemics, while some that had been affected earlier are now starting to see a resurgence in cases.

An expected drop in greenhouse gas emissions linked to the global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is only “short-term good news”, the head of the UN weather agency said on Wednesday. 

As the Lebanese government battles the COVID-19 pandemic, a dangerous epidemic of misinformation has been circulating through different communication channels and in communities since the beginning of the outbreak preventing people to heed official health warnings. To counter the growing scourge of fake news, the Ministry of Information is taking further steps and announced today a new communications response initiative in partnership with WHO, UNICEF and UNDP to flood media and social media with facts and science.

With most of the world’s students now at home due to COVID-19, the pandemic is revealing startling divides in digitally-based distance learning, data from the UN education and cultural agency, UNESCO, and partners has revealed.

They found that half of all students currently out of the classroom – or nearly 830 million learners globally -- do not have access to a computer. Additionally, more than 40 per cent have no Internet access at home.

The world is not only facing “a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe”, the UN food relief agency chief told the Security Council on Tuesday via video link.