MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/. Russia is currently developing 17 potential vaccines against COVID-19, a disease caused by the novel coronavirus, Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Wednesday.

"There are 17 vaccines that have shown to be promising, and in-depth work on their development is currently underway," the minister said in an interview with Rossiya-1 channel.

Murashko noted that every Russian citizen would decide for themselves whether they want to get vaccinated against the novel coronavirus. "On the whole, vaccination in our country can only be carried out with the citizens’ consent. We see that the interest in a vaccine is rather high. People have understood the importance of vaccination, and I would like to note that in this period, the number of vaccination supporters has risen," he said.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 11,965,900 people have been infected worldwide and more than 547,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 6,913,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, 700,792 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 472,511 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 10,667 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.