SEOUL -- "An infectious disease is a common enemy that harms people around the world regardless of nationality and border," Lee Hee-ok, a professor of political science at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, told Xinhua ahead of a Group of 20 (G20) video conference on Thursday.

"It cannot be resolved by the power of a single country. Every country with a shared future in the fight against the infectious disease will join hands and form a single community," Lee noted.

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DAR ES SALAAM -- "COVID-19 gives us such a huge challenge that we cannot address it with a 'business as usual' mentality. COVID-19 has declared war on humanity, and humanity needs to throw the war back at the pandemic," Southern African Development Community (SADC) Executive Secretary Stergomena Lawrence Tax has said.

"The socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 are going to be immense, and we will feel the effects for a long time to come," Tax said, adding she expects the G20 summit to come up with concrete solutions on how to address this pandemic effectively.

"One of the major ways of controlling a global pandemic is by encouraging all countries to regularly share information," she said.

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GENEVA -- United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Wednesday called on governments to take urgent action to protect the health and safety of people in detention and other closed facilities as part of overall efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

"Governments are facing huge demands on resources in this crisis and are having to take difficult decisions. But I urge them not to forget those behind bars, or those confined in places such as closed mental health facilities, nursing homes and orphanages, because the consequences of neglecting them are potentially catastrophic," the high commissioner said.

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UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Henrietta Fore on Wednesday expressed her concern about children's health, education and protection as COVID-19 has upended the lives of children around the world.

"Children are the hidden victims of this pandemic," Fore said at the virtual launch event of a 2-billion-U.S. dollar global humanitarian response plan to fight COVID-19 in some of the world's most vulnerable countries.

UNICEF is "worried about its short- and long-term impacts on their health, their well-being, their development and their prospects," she noted. Enditem

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