UPDATED: EU aims to raise 7.5bn euros for global coronavirus vaccine The European Commission hopes to raise at least 7.5 billion euros (8.2 billion dollars) at an international pledging conference on Monday to help develop a coronavirus vaccine to be used globally. Monday’s target is seen as the start of a global campaign to make the medical progress and health care investment needed to combat the deadly virus, in what commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called a “marathon.” The aim is to bring countries together to fight Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by coronavirus, rather than see them compete in a race to develop a vaccine. Making treatment available only to those who can afford it “won’t work biologically, it won’t work in terms of public health, it won’t end the pandemic,” Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust research foundation, said ahead of the conference. The world needs at least 8 billion dollars to fund research and to develop tests,...