Coronavirus Pandemic: UN, WHO amp up efforts to find COVID-19 vaccine

As the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic continues to create chaos with most of the countries across the globe imposing lockdown measures, the hunt for a vaccine has also picked up the pace. Several trials and studies are being conducted in the US, UK, China, and India with the hopes of finding the elusive vaccine to stop the novel coronavirus pathogen.

In an effort to unite the world in the fight against coronavirus the UN launched a collaboration to bring together world leaders, the private sector, scientific and humanitarian actors and other partners to promote health in these difficult times and to share information on the virus, exchange data amongst each other without any political boundaries.

The collaboration is co-hosted by World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, French President Emmanuel Macron, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

On the backdrop of the launch of this collab, the Secretary-General of United Nations Antonio Guterres expressed the idea for a universal solution to the universal COVID-19 problem. On Twitter, Guterres wrote: "A COVID-19 vaccine must be considered a global public good. Not a vaccine for one country or one region -- but a vaccine that is affordable, safe, effective, easily-administered and universally available -- for everyone, everywhere."

"A world free of COVID-19 requires the biggest public health effort in global history: Data must be shared, resources mobilised and politics set aside. We are in the fight of our lives. We are in it together. And we will come out of it stronger, together," he said.

The media statement issued after Friday`s announcement said that the group will seek to implement innovative diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines at record speed and at record scale in a bid to defeat COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the novel coronavirus has infected more than 27.9 lakh people and killed over 1,95,000 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University data on Saturday morning.