UN, May 11. /TASS/. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres encourages the staff of the global organization to get anti-COVID-19 jabs using Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine if it is allowed by medical authorities in the countries of their work.

"Many UN personnel has already received the Sputnik vaccine, namely in the Russian Federation, and we would like to be able to use it by ourselves and only waiting for the evaluation by the World Health Organization that from the point of view of the work of the UN itself is necessary," Guterres said speaking with Russian media outlets ahead of his visit to Moscow.

"But, we encourage, of course, the staff of the UN that is working in countries that are vaccinating with the Sputnik to receive this vaccine," he added.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is set to take off for a visit to Russia on Tuesday and he is scheduled to hold an official meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday.

On August 11, 2020, Russia became the first worldwide to register a vaccine against the coronavirus dubbed Sputnik V. The inoculation was developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Healthcare Ministry.

COVID-19 global situation

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.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 159,613,690 people have been infected worldwide and more than 3,318,010 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 137,319,290 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.