NEW DELHI: Coronavirus infections in India soared past five million yesterday, as the EU's chief warned against "vaccine nationalism" in the frantic global race to battle the disease. Worldwide cases are rapidly approaching 30 million, with more than 935,000 known COVID-19 deaths, the global economy devastated and nations struggling to contain new outbreaks since the virus first emerged in China late last year.

India, home to 1.3 billion people, has reported some of the highest daily case jumps in the world recently, as a World Health Organization special envoy described the global pandemic situation as "horrible" and "grotesque". "It's much worse than any of the science fiction about pandemics," David Nabarro told British MPs on Tuesday. "This is really serious - we're not even in the middle of it yet. We're still at the beginning of it."

The spread of the virus has accelerated in some of the most populous parts of the world such as India, where the latest million infections were detected over just 11 days. And some experts have warned that the total number of cases could be far higher in the vast nation, which has been easing one of the world's strictest lockdowns recently despite the surge to help its reeling economy.

With scientists rushing to find an effective vaccination seen as the way to end the pandemic, nine candidates are in late-stage human trials - the final stage of clinical testing, according to the WHO. But the United States has led wealthier nations already buying up millions of doses of promising models, prompting the WHO to call for cooperation to equitably distribute doses to ensure poorer countries have access.

The US remains the worst-hit nation in the world in terms of both infections and deaths, and Trump is under intense pressure over his handling of the coronavirus crisis. The Republican leader said Tuesday that a vaccine may be available within a month - an acceleration of even his own optimistic predictions. "We're within weeks of getting it, you know - could be three weeks, four weeks," Trump said during a town hall event broadcast on ABC News.

Germany's health minister Jens Spahn said Tuesday the country aims to reach herd immunity through a voluntary coronavirus vaccine expected to be widely available by mid-2021. That came as airlines ramped up pressure on the European Union to coordinate virus measures, demanding an end to quarantine "chaos" and access to reliable and quick testing. The UN said Tuesday the pandemic cost the global tourism sector $460 billion in the first six months of 2020. - AFP