The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how all countries are connected, underscoring that global cooperation and solidarity are the only way out of the crisis, senior UN officials said on Monday during the annual Partnership Forum, organized by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown called on Monday for the world’s richest nations to underwrite COVID-19 vaccination in poorer countries, highlighting the need to raise some $60 billion over the next two years.

Parts of the online economy have boomed since COVID-19 began, while some pre-pandemic big-hitters have seen a reversal of their fortunes in the last year, amid widespread movement restrictions, UN economists have found.

In a press release, WHO congratulated the health authorities in DRC, and the health workers “on the ground for their swift response which built on the country’s previous experience in tackling Ebola outbreaks”.

Healthcare workers in Malawi are concerned that misinformation about COVID-19 is preventing patients in dire need of medical attention not related to the virus, from seeking what could be live-saving treatment.

The roll-out of vaccinations to prevent COVID-19 infections rising in the Maldives is a good example of “vaccine equity in action” according to Catherine Haswell, the UN Resident Coordinator for the Indian Ocean island nation.

Although COVID-19 cases are declining in Brazil, the pandemic is putting decades of public health gains there at risk, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

Inequalities in addressing AIDS threaten global efforts to stamp out the disease as a public health threat by 2030, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in a report published on Friday.

Just over 460 days since the first COVID-19 cases were reported in Europe, more citizens living in the region have now been vaccinated, than the number infected, and although new cases and hospitalizations are falling, “the threat remains present”, a senior UN health official said on Thursday.

An unrelenting drought in southern Madagascar, an island State off the East African coast in the Indian Ocean, is forcing hundreds of thousands to the brink of famine at a scale “beyond belief”, a senior UN food agency official said on Thursday.