Hard Numbers: Pandemic treaty, UN asks for Syria cash, Tanzanian funeral stampede, India hoards COVAX jabs

Hard Numbers: Pandemic treaty, UN asks for Syria cash, Tanzanian funeral stampede, India hoards COVAX jabs
World Health Organization logo is reflected in a drop on a syringe needle in this illustration photo.
REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

23: Leaders of 23 countries and the World Health Organization support drafting an international treaty to help the world deal with future pandemics by sharing more information. Neither China — where COVID-19 originated — nor the US, with the world's highest death toll from the coronavirus, are among the treaty's initial backers.

10 billion: The UN has asked international donors for $10 billion to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to both Syrians fleeing the country's decade-long civil war and those still living there. The pandemic has put even more pressure on Syria's already feeble economy, and now nine in 10 Syrians currently live in poverty.

45: At least 45 people died in a stampede in a stadium in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam, where citizens had gathered last week to pay their respects to John Magufuli, the country's late president. Magufuli died on March 17, officially from a heart condition although it's widely suspected he contracted COVID despite declaring Tanzania virus-free.

10 million: India itself has kept about 10 million Indian-made COVID AstraZeneca vaccine doses, more than one-third of the total to be distributed by the global COVAX facility. India's ambitious campaign to inoculate both Indians and the rest of the world is lagging due to rising coronavirus cases, which recently prompted Delhi to stop exporting some jabs amid accusations of vaccine nationalism.

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