Countries in coronavirus epicenter Latin America reported troubling new statistics on Thursday, with Mexico and Peru both surpassing half a million confirmed infections.

If a COVID-19 vaccine is proven effective, the US will ensure it's distributed for free to all Americans, officials said Thursday, underscoring there will be no shortcuts on safety.

The total number of people killed by the novel coronavirus around the world passed 750,000 on Thursday, with some countries toughening control measures as caseloads once again creep up.

Russia claimed Tuesday it has developed the world's first vaccine offering "sustainable immunity" against the coronavirus, despite mounting scepticism about its effectiveness as fears grow over a second wave of infections across the globe.

President Vladimir Putin said the vaccine was safe and that one of his own daughters had received the inoculation, dubbed "Sputnik" after the pioneering 1950s Soviet satellite. 

Moscow has dubbed its new coronavirus vaccine "Sputnik V" after the Soviet satellite, the head of the country's sovereign wealth fund said Tuesday, after Russia declared itself the first country to develop a vaccine.

Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund which finances the vaccine project, said Phase 3 trials would start on Wednesday, industrial production was expected from September and that 20 countries had pre-ordered more than a billion doses.

More than 20 million coronavirus cases have been now been registered across the world, over half in the Americas, according to an AFP tally of official sources at 2215 GMT on Monday.

At least 20,002,577 cases and 733,842 deaths have now been reported. More than four out of 10 coronavirus cases have been in the United States and Brazil, the two most affected countries in the world. 

The United States on Sunday reached the extraordinary milestone of five million coronavirus cases as President Donald Trump was accused of flouting the constitution by unilaterally extending a virus relief package.

The World Health Organization on Tuesday urged Russia to follow the established guidelines for producing safe and effective vaccines after Moscow announced plans to start swiftly producing COVID-19 jabs.

Millions of people in the Philippines were ordered to stay home Tuesday as global coronavirus infections kept soaring, with the World Health Organization warning against relying on a vaccine "silver bullet" to end the pandemic.

France could "change course at any moment" to a runaway spread of coronavirus, the government's COVID-19 scientific council warned Tuesday as official data showed the first rise in intensive care patients since April.