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Pandemic won't be over until 70% are vaccinated: WHO director
The World Health Organization's regional director for Europe Hans Kluge said countries and their populations must not become complacent about the pandemic.
Scientists stress that mutation in virus strains is an expected phenomenon - the microbe evolves in order to survive.
China faced a barrage of criticism at home and abroad over its initial handling of the virus, which emerged in the central city of Wuhan last December.
Scientists initially believed the killer virus jumped from animals to humans at a market selling exotic animals for meat in the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected late last year.
Vaccination campaigns have already begun in Britain and the United States.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday said one means of achieving a more effective multilateral response was reforming the composition of and voting rights within the Security Council.
The WHO warned against complacency and what it said was an erroneous belief that because vaccines are on the near-horizon, the crisis is over.
The pandemic is showing little sign of slowing, with the daily global death toll in recent weeks reaching its highest rate since the virus emerged in China late last year.
The world health body sent an advance team to Beijing in July to lay the groundwork for the international probe.
The government closed its borders, schools, and mosques when the virus first hit in March, as well as banning large gatherings and travel between cities, and imposing a night-time curfew.
On 2 April more than 3.9 billion people - half of the world's population - are forced or called on to confine themselves, according to an AFP count. The same day the threshold of one million cases is crossed.
Hopes over COVID-19 vaccines have given a boost to virus-weary citizens across the globe, but the disease remains rampant and world leaders are urging people to be patient.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking from quarantine after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, warned that the virus preys on weakness.
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,105,691 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Saturday.
France reported nearly 17,000 new coronavirus cases on Saturday alone, the highest daily number since the country began widespread testing.
At a joint ministerial briefing in Pretoria on Wednesday on the new transport regulations under lockdown level 1, the minister said the data of the countries allowed in the country would be reviewed every two weeks.
The WHO said the $600 million scheme would enable low- and middle-income countries to close the dramatic gap in testing for the new coronavirus.
The country with the most coronavirus deaths is the United States with over 190,000 fatalities, followed by Brazil.
The past 30 years have seen remarkable strides forward in preventing or treating causes of infant deaths including premature births and pneumonia.