UNITED NATIONS, April 18. /TASS/. Once created, a vaccine against the novel coronavirus should be treated as "a global public good" and be accessible to everyone, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.

"We need a global coalition to develop a COVID19 vaccine, which must become available and affordable for everyone, everywhere," the UN chief wrote in a Twitter post. "It must be considered a global public good."

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 2.2 million people have been infected worldwide and more than 120,000 deaths have been reported.