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Uzbekistan identifies first coronavirus case

Uzbekistan’s Institute of Virology has identified the COVID-19 virus in the samples of an Uzbek citizen who recently returned from France

© Sergei Bobylev/TASS

TASS, March 15. The first coronavirus case has been identified in Uzbekistan, the Uzbek Health Ministry’s Agency for Sanitary and Epidemiological Welfare said in a statement on Sunday.

"Uzbekistan’s Institute of Virology has identified the COVID-19 virus in the samples of an Uzbek citizen who recently returned from France," the statement reads.

The agency added that measures were being taken to prevent the virus from spreading.

Coronavirus pandemic

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in more than 120 countries, including Russia. Most cases outside of China have been recorded in South Korea, Iran and Italy.

On March 11, the WHO declared the outbreak a global pandemic. As of now, more than 142,000 people have been infected around the world and about 5,400 have died of it. Russia has so far confirmed 59 coronavirus cases.

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