NOVO-OGARYOVO, March 24. /TASS/. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin provides a daily report to Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country.

"The government is working on it, practically on a daily basis. Mikhail Vladimirovich [Mishustin] informs me daily about it," Putin told a meeting with the government on the measures to combat the coronavirus.

At the beginning of the session Putin said that the epidemic "negatively affects all world economies, all leading world economies," which in turn concerns Russia. The Russian leader offered the participants of the session to discuss not only the existing measures, but also additional steps that can be appropriate in the current conditions.

A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center with a population of 11 million, in late December 2019. Cases of the new coronavirus have also been reported in more than 190 countries and territories, among them Russia, which by now has documented 495 cases. According to recent data, novel coronavirus cases across the globe have exceeded 385,000, with about 16,000 deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially described the situation with the novel coronavirus as a pandemic.