Coronavirus Outbreak (COVID - 19): WHO Update (19 October 2020)

Kim Sledge and the World We Want partnered with World Health Organization (WHO) Foundation to re-record unity anthem “We Are Family” in response to COVID-19 and to focus on global public health needs.

"I am delighted to announce that WHO has the honour of working with Kim Sledge, of the legendary group Sister Sledge, and Natasha Mudhar, founder of the World We Want organization.Together, we are today announcing the start of a new We Are Family campaign to promote global solidarity and collaboration in the face of COVID," WHO’s Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference on Monday (19 Oct) in Geneva.

Special edition cover of the classic song “We Are Family’ will be accompanied by a worldwide viral video starring celebrities, frontline health heroes, leaders and members of the public singing together in a show of solidarity and support for addressing present and future global public health needs, including COVID-19.

“The world is a family,” Kim Sledge, member of the group Sister Sledge said in a video call. “And those words are calling us together as a family to embrace one another through this time. And I feel that the song itself is one that has been about solidarity. It's about what families do when there's times of crisis.”

The #WeAreFamily video campaign will invite people worldwide to star in the music video, recording videos of themselves with their close family and friends singing the song and then sharing this on their social media channels. Part of the proceeds from the new song, being released 9 Nov, will be donated to the WHO Foundation to support the response to COVID-19 and promotion and protection of health for people around the world.

In other COVID-19 related updates, Dr Tedros said “I am pleased to announce today that now 184 countries have now joined COVAX. The most recent countries joining over the weekend are Ecuador and Uruguay."

COVAX is one of three pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which was launched in April by the WHO, the European Commission and France in response to this pandemic. Bringing together governments, global health organisations, manufacturers, scientists, private sector, civil society and philanthropy, with the aim of providing innovative and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines.

The COVAX pillar is focussed on the latter. It is the only truly global solution to this pandemic because it is the only effort to ensure that people in all corners of the world will get access to COVID-19 vaccines once they are available, regardless of their wealth.

Видео Coronavirus Outbreak (COVID - 19): WHO Update (19 October 2020) канала United Nations