MOSCOW, March 11./TASS/. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia has grown by eight to 28 in the past 24 hours. Six patients are in Moscow and two in the Moscow region, all of them have visited Italy in the past two weeks, the national coronavirus task force told journalists on Wednesday.

"Eight new cases of the novel coronavirus infection among nationals of the Russian Federation have been reported in the past 24 hours - six in Moscow and two in the Moscow region. Epidemiological inspection has established that all citizens have visited the Italian Republic over the past two weeks," the task force said.

All patients are in isolation wards. Besides, the people coming into contact with them have been identified, they are also under medical surveillance.

According to the task force, 28 coronavirus cases are reported in Russia as of Wednesday. Twenty-five of them are Russian nationals returning from Italy. Besides, there are two Chinese nationals and one Italian among the coronavirus patients in Russia. Two Chinese nationals and a Russian citizen have been discharged from hospital. Russian nationals evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan have recovered.

A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center, in late December 2019. Besides China, major coronavirus outbreaks have been reported in South Korea, Iran and Italy.

More than 100 countries, including Russia, have reported confirmed coronavirus cases. In China, over 3,100 people have died, 61,400 people recovered, and the number of cases reached 80,700. Over 110,000 coronavirus cases and more than 4,000 deaths have been confirmed in the world so far.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially characterized the situation with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as a pandemic, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated during Wednesday’s briefing in Geneva.

"WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction," the WHO chief stated.

"We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic," he said.