MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/. The World Health Organization (WHO) has registered a total of 13,903 newly confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus worldwide and 862 deaths in the past 24 hours, the organization said in a report published on its website on Monday night.

The overall number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases now stands at 167,511. More than half of them - 86,434 - were registered outside mainland China.

The total number of fatalities increased to 6,606, including 3,388 deaths outside mainland China.

A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center with a population of 12 million, in late December 2019. Cases of the new coronavirus have also been reported from about 130 countries and territories, including Russia, which has 93 coronavirus cases. The WHO has officially described the situation with the novel coronavirus as a pandemic.