The global COVID-19 pandemic can be overcome quickly if countries use the right tools, the head of the World Health Organisation said on Monday, but warned that if those tools were not used it would remain for a long time.

“If we use the tools we have at hand properly, we can end it soon,” WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during the Financial Times’ online Africa summit, adding a vaccine was expected late 2020 or early next year.

“If we don’t use the tools we have at hand properly, then it could linger with us, it could stay with us for a very long period,” he said.