GENEVA, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) suggested on Thursday to strike a balance of investment in simple public health interventions and in vaccine development, to fight COVID-19.

"It's a matter of striking a balance," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a daily press briefing on COVID-19 in Geneva.

Tedros underlined the necessity to invest in "simple public solutions to contain the outbreak, because our objective still is containment and we believe, as WHO, that there is a chance to contain this outbreak, if we use the window of opportunity that we have."

However, "we have to be also prepared for any eventualities for the worst scenario", "so we have investment in vaccines too", he added.

"So the advice from the WHO is we need to strike a balance, we need to find out the simple public solution that can help us to contain the outbreak now, but at the same time, be prepared for the future for any eventualities by investing in the vaccines," he reiterated.