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Coronavirus pandemic

Russia urging to support other countries in countering coronavirus, says diplomat

MOSCOW, April 2. /TASS/. Russia is lending a helping hand to other states amid the coronavirus pandemic, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday.

According to the diplomat, examples of civilized humanitarian cooperation and interaction demonstrated today in the fight against the virus are met with the desire of certain sides to "distort true reasons behind help and use all mechanisms of propaganda and information war to either diminish the significance of this humanitarian measures or simply distort them." "Fakes and disinformation are employed in this case," she noted.

"This will never succeed in undermining the importance of cooperation between countries and their mutual help, while also will not be able to do anything to stop the truly sincere and right desire of states, nations and leaders who are lending a helping hand to each other when it is needed in these difficult moments for the humanity," Zakharova said. "I think that we should follow these examples and there should be many more of them. We should support each other in these difficult times for the world."

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. To date, more than 938,000 people have been infected worldwide and over 47,000 deaths have been reported. That said, over 195,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

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Maria Zakharova

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