ST. PETERSBURG, February 13. /TASS/. The chief sanitary physician in the Russian city of St. Petersburg has filed a lawsuit against a woman who escaped from the Botkin Hospital for Infectious Diseases where she was undergoing coronavirus quarantine, the united press service of the city’s courts said in a statement on Thursday.

According to the statement, the lawsuit has been filed with the Kuibyshevsky District Court.

Alla Ilyina, who had returned from China in early February, left the hospital without permission, short-circuiting the electric lock on the door to her ward.

According to the Russian consumer watchdog and St. Petersburg’s health authorities, the patient committed an administrative offense by breaking quarantine regulations and potentially exposing other people to the virus.

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, central China. Coronavirus cases have also been reported in 24 other countries, including Russia. The WHO declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus a global health emergency. The total number of coronavirus cases recorded in China has exceeded 59,800, while the death toll has hit 1,368. More than 5,900 patients have recovered.