MOSCOW, March 8. /TASS/. Three new coronavirus cases have been registered in Russia over the past twenty-four hours and the infected persons are currently staying in the Kaliningrad, Moscow and Belgorod Regions, Russia’s emergency response center reported on Sunday.

"Over the past twenty-four hours, three coronavirus infection cases have been registered in the Russian Federation: one case in the Kaliningrad Region, one in the Belgorod Region and one in the Moscow Region," the emergency response center said, adding that all these people had visited Italy over the past two weeks.

The group of people with whom the infected persons had contacts on the territory of Russia has been identified. All of them will stay under medical observation, it said.

According to the data of the emergency response center, 17 coronavirus cases have been registered in Russia. This figure includes 14 Russian citizens who have returned from Italy, two citizens of China and one Italian. One Russian and two Chinese nationals have recovered from the disease.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova earlier called the situation around the coronavirus exaggerated. According to her, if there had been a threat of a flu epidemic, Russia would have taken measures similar to what the authorities were doing to prevent the coronavirus spread.

On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities reported to the World Health Organization about an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, an economic and industrial megalopolis with a population of 11 million.

The virus was identified on January 7 as 2019-nCoV. As of today, 103 countries and territories, including Russia, have reported confirmed coronavirus cases.

The World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, characterizing it as an epidemic with multiple locations. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated on February 11 that the organization gave the novel coronavirus an official name of COVID-19.

According to the latest reports, over 106,200 cases of patients infected with the novel coronavirus have been confirmed in China and other countries. The virus’ death toll has reached 3,600, yet more than 60,190 patients have recovered from the disease.

The largest number of coronavirus infections outside China has been registered in South Korea, Iran and Italy.