MOSCOW, May 20. /TASS/. The coronavirus situation in Russia has stabilized, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative to Russia Melita Vujnovic told TASS on Wednesday.

"It seems that the country is at the stage of stabilization," the WHO official said.

Although the infection spread rate has slowed down, Russia should take efforts to further reduce new coronavirus cases in the country, Vujnovic stressed.

"This is a very sensitive phase that requires further observing physical distancing (even in case of lifting some restrictions), careful hand hygiene, the identification of cases, their testing, treatment and isolation," she pointed out.

The efforts to trace all the contacts of infected people and the compliance with the quarantine are critically important for maintaining the positive trend and control of the epidemic, the WHO official said.

"It’s like a marathon and I would say that we are only halfway," the WHO envoy said.

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 4,990,400 people have been infected worldwide and more than 324,900 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 1,961,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, a total of 308,705 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 85,392 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 2,927 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.