MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/. The Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade plans to reach weekly production of about 300 lung ventilators from the next week, Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV Channel.

"From four to five lung ventilators were made per week. Exactly during this week we will reach the volume of 200 units. We expect achieving 300 or may be slightly higher from the next week," he said.

"We should perform in three months the volume comprised in total in the order from the healthcare system; there are more than 5,000 units across all regions," Manturov added.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials 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. According to the latest statistics, over 2,190,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 147,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 553,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, a total of 32,008 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 2,590 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 273 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.