"Met Sergey Lavrov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, at the G20 Rome Summit and agreed we must strengthen the health architecture, including the WHO’s key role, to prevent health threats," Ghebreyesus twitted.
The WHO head said he had also discussed the upcoming World Health Assembly special session on an international pact on pandemic preparedness and response with the Russian foreign minister. The session is due to take place in November, TASS reported.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday, following a meeting of Lavrov and Ghebreyesus on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome that Russia’s top diplomat highlighted the importance of including Russian COVID-19 vaccines in the list of medicines recommended by the WHO for emergency use.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a live broadcast of the Solovyov-Live channel that Ghebreyesus had expressed gratitude to Lavrov for the initiative by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the mutual recognition of vaccines by the G20 countries.
The summit of the G20 Group of major economies is running in Rome on October 30-31.