UN, April 24 (CGTN) - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for the development and production of COVID-19 tools that are universally accessible.

Guterres made the appeal at the launch of global collaboration to accelerate the development, production and equitable access to new COVID-19 tools.

The world needs the development, production and equitable delivery of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine, therapeutics and diagnostics – not a vaccine or treatment for one country or one region or one-half of the world, but a vaccine and treatment that are affordable, safe, effective, easily administered and universally available, for everyone, everywhere, Guterres told the virtual event.

These new tools must be a very clear and essential example of a global public good, he said. "For too long, we have undervalued and underinvested in global public goods – a clean environment, cybersecurity, peace, the list goes on."

The need for new urgency in support of global public goods and universal health coverage is a vital lesson from this pandemic, he said. "We are in the fight of our lives. We are in it together. And we will come out of it stronger, together."

A world free of COVID-19 requires the most massive public health effort in global history. Data must be shared, production capacity prepared, resources mobilized, communities engaged, and politics set aside, he said.

"In an interconnected world, none of us is safe until all of us are safe. COVID-19 respects no borders. COVID-19 anywhere is a threat to people everywhere."

The launch of the new collaboration was co-hosted by World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, French President Emmanuel Macron, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.