During the 1 June media briefing, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to disruptions in services for treatment of non-communicable diseases in many countries. The COVID-19 response must be inclusive of the healthcare needs of people living with these diseases.

Since the start of the pandemic, there has been an urgent need to accelerate the research and development of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. WHO has been supporting this effort. Currently over 120 candidate vaccines have been mapped and sites in 40 countries have expressed an interest to join the Vaccine Solidarity Trial. 

Smoking kills 8 million people worldwide each year and is associated with increased severity of disease and death in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.