Global economic recovery could come faster if the COVID-19 vaccine becomes available to everyone, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Reuters reported.

“Sharing vaccines or sharing other tools actually helps the world to recover together. The economic recovery can be faster and the damage from COVID-19 could be less,” Tedros said.

“Vaccine nationalism is not good, it will not help us,” he said.

“We must seize this moment to come together in national unity and global solidarity to control COVID-19,” he told Thursday’s forum. “No country will be safe until we are all safe.”

WHO Emergency Director Michael Ryan, speaking of the Russian vaccine, said that trial data was needed to ensure the safety and efficacy of any vaccine. Authorities should be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine via traditional clinical trials rather than “human challenge” studies. He meant deliberately exposing vaccinated volunteers to the virus to see if the vaccine worked.