A World Health Organization spokeswoman said on Friday, September 4 it does not expect widespread vaccinations against Covid-19 until the middle of 2021, stressing the importance of rigorous checks on their effectiveness and safety, Reuters reports.

“We are not expecting to see widespread vaccination until the middle of next year,” spokeswoman Margaret Harris told journalists at a briefing in Geneva.

“This phase 3 must take longer because we need to see how truly protective the vaccine is and we also need to see how safe it is,” she added referring to vaccine clinical trials.

There are now more than 26.3 million cases of the novel coronavirus worldwide, including over 17.5 million recoveries, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking figures from the World Health Organization and additional sources. Since the beginning of the outbreak, more than 869,000 people have died globally from Covid-19 complications.