PARIS - The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has topped 900,000 since the respiratory disease first appeared in China last year, according to an AFP tally.
As the fatalities climbed, US President Donald Trump admitted he had tried to minimise the seriousness of the COVID-19 threat at the start of the pandemic, in audio recordings released Wednesday from interviews with veteran journalist Bob Woodward.
There have been more than 27.7 million confirmed virus cases worldwide, according to an AFP count based on official statistics, with the worst-hit region Latin America and the Caribbean, followed by Europe. However clinical trials on one of the most advanced experimental COVID-19 vaccines, which is being developed by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and Oxford University, were "paused" this week after a volunteer developed an unexplained illness.Russia has already approved a vaccine and on Wednesday began inoculating volunteers in Moscow, the capital's deputy mayor said.
High-profile Russians have already been vaccinated, including President Vladimir Putin's daughter, Moscow's mayor, and nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky. David Lo, a professor of biomedical sciences at the University of California, Riverside, told AFP the company's decision is not necessarily a setback.
China, meanwhile, put its homegrown vaccines on display for the first time at a Beijing trade fair this week, and authorities hope one will be approved for use by the end of the year.
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