WHO envoy says creating readily available vaccine for coronavirus will take months, says work continues on than 70 vaccine options

WHO's representative in Russia Melita Vujnovic said during an interview with TASS that creating a readily available vaccine for the coronavirus will take months.

Vujnovic said: "intensive efforts to create a vaccine for the coronavirus are underway at dozens of research centers across the globe, including in Russia."

"Work continues on than 70 vaccine options and at least 20 options are being considered for preclinical and clinical trials," she pointed out.

"Nevertheless, clinical trials may take much time because there is a need to make sure that the new vaccine is safe and effective. This is why it will be a long time before the vaccine becomes available to people across the world," Vujnovic added.

All 193 member states of the United Nations General Assembly earlier unanimously supported a resolution calling for preventing speculations concerning the future vaccine for the coronavirus and ensuring general access to medicines and protective equipment.

The resolution also emphasized the World Health Organization’s key role in the fight against the pandemic.

In Russia, a total of 52,763 coronavirus cases have been confirmed, with 3,873 patients having recovered from the virus.

Russia’s latest data indicates 456 fatalities nationwide.

The ravaging COVID-19 outbreak was in late December 2019 brought into the attention of the global communities when Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. 

Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus have been reported in every corner of the globe with more than 185 countries and territories confirmed the presence of the deadly infection in their domains


The World Health Organisation (WHO) on March 11, 2020 declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. 

The latest statistics indicated that more than 2,500,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 175,000 deaths have been reported.

United State is currently the most affected country both terms of the infection people and death toll. Over 700,000 have been infected and over 40,000 COVID-19 related death have been recorded. 

Italy Spain, France, and the UK are the worst affected countries in Europe while Iran cases are the worst in the middle east up till date.