Coronavirus: Global cases now 21.8 million

Coronavirus: Global cases now 21.8 million

The global death toll from Covid-19 reached 772,856 on Tuesday, according to the Centre for System Science and Engineering of Johns Hopkins University.

Besides, the number of confirmed cases stood at 21,815,984, according to JHU data.

The data showed that 13,810,029 people made recovery from the virus infection.

Among the countries, the US has been the worst-hit with the highest recorded deaths of 170,492 patients and about 5,437,969 confirmed cases.

Meanwhile, India's coronavirus death toll surpassed 50,000 on Monday.

India has the third highest number of infections globally with nearly 2.65 million confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

South American country Brazil, the second worst infected country, confirmed 3,359,570 cases and 108,536 deaths from coronavirus.

Coronavirus cases were first reported in China in December last year.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus crisis a pandemic on March 11.

Coronavirus Vaccine

Russia has started production of the first batch of vaccines against COVID-19, its health ministry said in a statement released Saturday.

Earlier in last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the world's first registered vaccine against the novel coronavirus, Sputnik V, which is named after the space satellite launched by Moscow in 1957, reports Xinhua.

The vaccine was created by the Gamaleya Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, a medical institute located near Moscow.

Russia will offer the vaccine to other countries once its own citizens are vaccinated, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said Wednesday, adding that doubts over the effectiveness of the vaccine are unfounded.

Meanwhile, National Intellectual Property Administration of China has granted the first patent for a COVID-19 vaccine, reports Xinhua.

According to the patent abstract, the vaccine shows good immunogenicity in both mouse and guinea pig models and can induce strong cellular and humoral immune response in a short period of time.

It can be produced quickly on a large scale to cope with a COVID-19 outbreak.

The vaccine has now finished phase-1 and phase-2 clinical trials, which have verified its safety and immunogenicity, said the report.