COVID-19 vaccine must be available for all: Merkel

BERLIN- Anadolu Agency

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on April 23 pledged significant funding for research on the novel coronavirus, underlining that a possible vaccine against COVID-19 should be made available to all countries.

Addressing lawmakers at the German parliament ahead of a video conference among EU leaders, Merkel underlined that returning to normal life across the world would only be possible once a vaccine against coronavirus was developed.

"Science is never national, science serves humanity," Merkel stressed, calling for stronger international cooperation in efforts to develop a vaccine against COVID-19.

"If we find a medicine or vaccine, test and approve it, then this must be available and affordable to the entire world," she stressed.

Germany on April 22 approved the first clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine on humans, jointly developed by Turkish professor Uğur Şahin’s BioNTech company and pharma giant Pfizer.

Scientists and researchers across the world are scrambling to find a vaccine for the virus which has infected over 2.6 million people worldwide and killed more than 183,000.