Italy claims to have developed world's first Coronavirus vaccine

The tests have reportedly being carried out at Rome's infectious-disease Spallanzani Hospital.

New Delhi: Italy has claimed that it has developed the world's first coronavirus vaccine that works on humans, various media reports said on Wednesday.

The tests have reportedly been carried out at Rome's infectious-disease Spallanzani Hospital. Reports added that the coronavirus vaccine has antibodies generated in mice that work on human cells.

Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy climbed by 236 on Tuesday, against 195 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new infections came in at 1,075 against 1,221 on Monday, a Reuters report said.

The total death toll since the outbreak came to light on February 21 now stands at 29,315 the agency said, one of the highest in the world. The number of confirmed cases amounts to 213,013.

Meanwhile, a team of US scientists led by US-based Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos or LANL) have identified that the new strain is more contagious than the virus in early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 33-page report was posted Thursday on prepreint portal BioRxiv, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, the new strain appeared in February in Europe, migrated to the US East Coast and has been the dominant strain across the world since mid-March, according to a report in Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.

As per the COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University, there are 3,664,011 coronavirus cases worldwide while the death toll has reached 257,301.

With Reuters Inputs