The Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator is a global initiative between multiple partners to ensure equitable access to life-saving tools for COVID-19. WHO has published the ACT-Accelerator Investment Case, which provides an overview of the ACT-Accelerator, its goals, and the investments that are required to carry out its mission. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros emphasized that “vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics are vital tools – but to be truly effective they must be administered with another essential ingredient, which is solidarity”.

Yesterday the Ebola virus disease outbreak in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was declared over after nearly two years. The WHO Regional Office for Africa and partners are now building on the Ebola response to tackle COVID-19 in the country. Additionally, WHO is supporting other countries in Africa as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates in the region.

It has never been clearer that communication is an important public health intervention that contributes to controlling pandemics. The WHO Regional Office for Europe discusses this and the risks of an “infodemic” – an overabundance of information, some of which can be misleading or even harmful. WHO launched the first Infodemiology conference on 29 June, which includes talks with experts on how the infodemic affects the world and reflections on how it can be managed.