MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/. The first vaccines against the novel coronavirus may appear in Russia in late July, Russian Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko stated on Wednesday during a plenary session of the Russian State Duma.

"I hope that in July, most likely in the last ten days of July, the first drugs will arrive," he said in response to a question by Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. Earlier, Murashko noted that some drugs against the novel coronavirus may enter clinical practice in Russia over the next few weeks, with some of them replacing foreign drugs.

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 4,355,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 293,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 1,610,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, a total of 242,271 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 48,003 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 2,212 fatalities nationwide.

According to the Russian anti-coronavirus crisis center, the daily increase in cases in Russia has gone down to 4.3% compared to 4.9% a day earlier. The officials noted that 4,461 of newly diagnosed patients (44.5%) do not exhibit symptoms of the disease.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Moscow has risen by 4,703, reaching 126,004. The daily increase in cases has reached 3.9% in the Russian capital for the first time.