HELSINKI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th April, 2020) Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and the chief of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, held a telephone conversation on Friday, during which the sides discussed the coronavirus situation, WHO's role in its containment and the additional funding allocated by Helsinki.
The Finnish government announced on Wednesday that it decided to raise funding for WHO by 1.95 million Euros ($2.1 million) amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Prime Minister Marin also informed the Director-General of the Government's decision taken on 16 April to increase financial support to the World Health Organization by raising voluntary funding to EUR 5.5 million. The Prime Minister emphasized the importance of the work of the WHO overall and the need to further strengthen multilateral cooperation," the prime minister's office said in a statement.
To date, Finland has registered 3,489 COVID-19 cases with 82 deaths, according to the Institute for Health and Welfare.
WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. So far, the number of people who have been infected with the novel coronavirus worldwide exceeds two million and more than 149,000 have succumbed to the deadly virus or related health complications, according to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
