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The global death toll from coronavirus (Covid-19) reached 786,303 on Thursday (Aug 20), according to the Centre for Systems Science and Engineering of Johns Hopkins University. Besides, the number of confirmed cases stands at 22,328,069, according to JHU data.
Among the countries, the US has been the worst-hit with the highest recorded deaths of 173,145 patients and about 5,529,347 confirmed cases.
Meanwhile, India's coronavirus death toll surpassed 52,889 on Thursday. India has the third highest number of infections globally with nearly 2,767,273 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic.
South American country Brazil, the second worst infected country, confirmed 3,456,652 cases and 111,100 deaths from coronavirus.
Coronavirus cases were first reported in China in December last year. The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus crisis a pandemic on Mar 11.
Situation in Bangladesh
The death toll from Covid-19 disease reached 3,741 in Bangladesh on Wednesday as health authorities reported 41 more fatalities in the last 24 hours across the country.
During the period, another 2,747 Covid-19 cases were detected which increased the number of total cases in the country to 2,85,091.
The total number of recoveries reached 1,65,738 on Thursday as 1,913 patients were reported cured in the last 24 hours.
Vaccine
Russia has started production of the first batch of vaccines against Covid-19, its health ministry said in a statement released Saturday.
Earlier in last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the world's first registered vaccine against the novel coronavirus, Sputnik V, which is named after the space satellite launched by Moscow in 1957, report said.
The vaccine was created by the Gamaleya Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, a medical institute located near Moscow.
Russia will offer the vaccine to other countries once its own citizens are vaccinated, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said Wednesday, adding that doubts over the effectiveness of the vaccine are unfounded.
Meanwhile, National Intellectual Property Administration of China has granted the first patent for a Covid-19 vaccine, report said.
According to the patent abstract, the vaccine shows good immunogenicity in both mouse and guinea pig models and can induce strong cellular and humoral immune response in a short period of time.
It can be produced quickly on a large scale to cope with a Covid-19 outbreak.
The vaccine has now finished phase-1 and phase-2 clinical trials, which have verified its safety and immunogenicity, said the report.
