The US is the worst-hit country amid the pandemic, confirming over 33.4 million coronavirus cases and a death toll of around 600,000.
India, which has been suffering from a dramatic spike in infections since April, is second with a total of 29.3 million COVID-19 cases and over 367,000 deaths. Brazil rounds out the top three, with more than 17 million cases and the second-highest death toll in the world of around 486,000.
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Sunday that the country's portion in the G7 common initiative of coronavirus vaccine supplies to the world's developing nations would be 100 million doses.
"Today, the G7 announced that our collective commitments will result in over one billion doses being shared with the rest of the world. Canada's portion is 100 million doses", Trudeau said after the conclusion of the summit.
He specified that 87 million doses out of the package would be distributed among the developing countries, and 13 million shots would be supplied through WHO's COVAX programme, aimed to provide access to vaccines against the disease to low- and middle-income countries.
Earlier in the day, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the G7 leaders agreed to donate over one billion vaccine shots to the world's low-income economies either directly or through the COVAX scheme. He noted that London's share in the scheme was also 100 million doses.
The US president stressed that he hasn't reached a conclusion on COVID-19 origins.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The leaders of the G7 nations have agreed to accelerate both the production of COVID-19 vaccines and their delivery across the globe, Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said Sunday.
"We spent three days trying to align the position of the world's biggest democracies. The priority was to ensure we can meet the demand for vaccines and here the EU has taken the leadership. Partners have now joined us to accelerate production and delivery of vaccines worldwide," Michel said in a video message published online.
The European Council president also said that the EU's efforts to mobilise more funds to strengthen ties with Africa were also well received by the G7 leaders.
"Another point, of special significance to me, is our engagement with Africa. For some years already, with some in Europe, we are convinced that this engagement with Africa needs to be strengthened at the heart of our future international relations. Increasingly, we've been able to unify the positions of European countries on this issue and now we've convinced our partners to further mobilise funds to secure a win-win strategy for Africa and Europe", Michel added.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Local COVID-19 mutations exist in Russia, in particular in Moscow, and are now being studied, Alexander Gintsburg, the chief of the Russian Gamaleya Research Centre, told Sputnik.
"For sure, like in other countries, there are original variants of the virus' mutations in our country, in particular in Moscow. We are studying now their properties and differences from other circulating strains", Gintsburg said.
