More than 100 possible vaccines are being developed to try to stop the pandemic. At least two are in final Phase III human trials, according to World Health Organization data – one being developed by China’s Sinopharm and the other by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

“We shouldn’t underestimate the stress that COVID puts particularly on fragile health systems,” Hegemann said, adding Novartis hoped to work with health authorities, faith-based organisations and NGOs to eliminate big mark-ups. “We are not targeting classical commercial distribution channels, but very direct channels.”

The United Nations increased its humanitarian appeal by more than a third to $10.3 billion to help 63 states, mainly in Africa and Latin America, tackle the spread and destabilizing effects of the coronavirus. This is up from the world body’s initial $2 billion request in March, then $6.7 billion in May.

So far, Lowcock said, the United Nations has only received $1.7 billion.

The IMF last month further slashed its 2020 global output forecasts, predicting a 4.9% contraction and weaker-than-expected recovery in 2021.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said $11 trillion in fiscal measures by G20 members and other countries, as well as massive central bank liquidity injections, have put a floor under the global economy.

Even so, dangers lurked, she said, including a major new wave of infections, stretched asset valuations, volatile commodity prices, rising protectionism and political instability.

Red Crescent Secretary General Nilab Mobarez said acute protective equipment shortages and difficulties in accessing remote regions were hampering its COVID-19 response. But it was expanding mobile health teams and adding thousands of community volunteers to try and detect and prevent the disease, which it said it expected to spread over coming weeks

“I think the virus is mutating all the time … it may be a much stronger virus that triggers a second wave,” Kiyoshi Kurokawa, a prominent Japanese government adviser,told Reuters. “The Olympics may be postponed again, but I can’t predict.”