MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th September, 2020) The death toll from the coronavirus infection in the world topped 870,000, over 26.4 million cases of infection were detected, and over 17.5 million of those patients were cured, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University, which tracks and compiles data from Federal and local authorities, media and other sources.
As of 19:30 GMT Friday, the number of cases globally is 26,418,530, including 870,790 fatalities.
The United States still has the highest case count in the world, with 6,176,623, including 187,200 fatalities and 2,266,957 recoveries.
There are a significant number of promising vaccines against COVID-19 under development across the world, although they will be endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) only when they are deemed to be safe and effective, the health body's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
As many as 78 middle- and upper-income countries, including Japan, have so far confirmed their participation in the COVAX Facility, a World Health Organization-led initiative to accelerate the development and distribution of an effective vaccine against COVID-19, Tedros also said.
At least 200 million doses of coronavirus vaccine will be required for bringing the risk of severe disease to an acceptable minimum, which is the key to reopening societies after COVID-19, Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser to the WHO, said.
A large-scale global distribution of vaccines against COVID-19 is not expected until mid-2021, the World Health Organization's (WHO) chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan told a press briefing.
Russia is ready to share its experience of developing a vaccine and treatments against COVID-19 with its partners in BRICS, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting of the organization's top diplomats.
The first doses of the Russian coronavirus vaccine for post-registration clinical trials have already been received by three medical organizations in Moscow � city polyclinics No. 2, No. 220 and No. 62, Deputy Mayor Anastasia Rakova said.
Alexander Gintsburg, the director of Russia's Gamaleya Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, expects mass vaccination against COVID-19 in Russia to take 9-12 months.
Russian vaccine, which is based on the well-researched adenovirus platform, may be a better approach than vaccines based on more experimental ideas, such as mRNA or chimpanzee adenvirus, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), said.
The phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine candidate dubbed Sputnik V found that the level of neutralizing antibodies of volunteers that received the vaccine was 1.4-1.5 times higher than in patients who recovered from the disease, in the contrast to the British vaccine candidate developed by the Oxford University and the AstraZeneca pharmaceutical company, the RDIF said.
All volunteers in the trials of Russian coronavirus vaccine demonstrated stable humoral and cellular immune response, the Gamaleya Institute said in a scientific paper published in The Lancet journal.
Russia's clinical studies of the COVID-19 vaccine dubbed Sputnik V, similarly to other vaccine candidates, are encouraging but small, and much more has yet to be learned from further late-stage randomized trials, Dr. Naor Bar-Zeev and Dr. Tom Inglesby, professors at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote in a commentary to the scientific paper published by Russian researchers.
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobianin told President Vladimir Putin that he had been vaccinated with the coronavirus vaccine developed in the Russian research center and was feeling well.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said he had been inoculated with the Russian coronavirus vaccine.
The Philippine Department of Health will hold separate meetings with representatives of the Russian embassy in Manila and US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to discuss the possible purchase of vaccines against COVID-19, state media reported.
South Africa will look into the possibility of placing an order for Russia's vaccine against COVID-19 as soon as it is endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the charge d'affaires at the South African Embassy in Moscow, Madivha Aaron Mudimeli, told Sputnik.
The Russian-Chinese joint laboratory for the study of COVID-19 will be created by the end of the year and will receive the first results in 2021, the director of Scientific and Research Institute of Vaccines and Serums named after I.I. Mechnikov, Oksana Svitich, told Sputnik.
No European Union citizen should be denied entry to another nation in the bloc, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said, adding that member states should use testing and quarantine measures to contain the coronavirus disease outbreak.
Authorities in the Spanish capital of Madrid have issued a host of new guidelines to curb the spread of COVID-19 that targeting citizens' private lives and occasions.
France was forced to halt the activities of 22 schools after new coronavirus cases were detected among the pupils days after the new school year began, education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said.
Two confirmed coronavirus cases among residents of the Oinofyta refugee camp, located in the Boeotia region north of Athens, prompted the authorities to lock down the facility, media reported, citing the migration ministry.
The Moscow Theological academy, the main religious school of the Russian Orthodox Church, was quarantined after the university head, Bishop of Zvenigorod, was diagnosed with COVID-19, the church said.
Undiagnosed coronavirus infection might be the reason behind the more than usual number of deaths that were registered worldwide this year, which gives a peep on the true scale of COVID-19's cost in terms of human lives, Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser to the WHO, said.
French citizens have held onto some 85 billion Euros ($100.8 billion) due to reduced consumption during the coronavirus crisis, in what is the second-largest EU economy, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said.
Moscow may see some increase in the number of the coronavirus infections in the fall because the school year has begun and many people are returning back to the city from summer houses, Mayor Sergey Sobianin said.
