The World Health Organization (WHO) has asked for $ 667 million over three months to respond to the new coronavirus, which is about 995 billion won.

"Today we are embarking on a strategic preparedness and response plan," said WHO Secretary-General, Thewards Adhanom Gerberus, at a press briefing at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, yesterday afternoon.

"Our message to the international community is to invest today or pay more later," he said. "This is a large amount, but much less than the bill we have to pay if we don't invest now."

The secretary-general said $ 60 million of the funds requested would go to WHO operations, with the rest going to countries that need help with the new coronavirus.

The Secretary-General also said that WHO has released $ 9 million, or $ 10.7 billion, from its emergency fund, and has sent 500,000 masks, 350,000 pairs of gloves, 40,000 respirators, and 18,000 suits to 24 countries. .

He welcomed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's donation of $ 100 million and approximately $ 18.5 billion in our money for new coronavirus testing, treatment, and vaccine research. Very quickly, ”he said.

However, when he asked the United Kingdom to advise its citizens to leave China with the new coronavirus, "these approaches would not help. We recommend that all countries make decisions based on evidence." I said again.

He then reported that Australia had reported the case since some of the wealthy countries were lagging behind in sharing the case data with the WHO, and Japan said it would report more quickly.

But other countries are still lagging behind.

"We cannot overcome this outbreak without political, technical and financial solidarity," the general secretary said. "We understand what people care about and worry about. But it's not time to fear, it's rational, evidence-based action." And time to invest. "