WHO and UN launch drive to accelerate vaccine development

(ANSA) - Rome, April 24 - As the deaths caused by the coronavirus passed 190,000 at the global level and the number of cases crossed the 2.7 million threshold (Johns Hopkins University data updated Friday), a "historic collaboration" was launched to accelerate the arrival of a vaccine.
    The initiative, spearheaded by the World Health Organization and the United Nations, aims to speed up the development, production and equitable distribution of a vaccine and therapies to combat the coronavirus. "It regards one of the greatest medical-scientific collaborations in history," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
    "In an interconnected world like ours, none of us is safe until all of us are safe". "Since January, the WHO has been working with thousands of researchers all over the world to accelerate the development of a vaccine," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu.
    "United we will defeat the coronavirus".
    Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said: "Italy has been on the front line of this battle from the start.
    "We have learned from our own experience that the virus knows no borders". After two days of falls in the United Kingdom, the number of coronavirus deaths in hospitals there in the last 24 hours increased slightly.
    The health ministry said there were 684 deaths in 24 hours.
    Spain registered 367 deaths in 24 hours, the lowest daily total in a month, according to the Spanish government.