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Coronavirus pandemic

Daily increase in COVID-19 cases in Russia may stabilize soon — WHO envoy

"We hope that in the next few days, we will witness some stabilization, which means that the number of cases will increase in a stable manner. Currently, it is unstable," she said

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/. The World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in Russia Melita Vujnovic hopes that the daily increase in the novel coronavirus cases in Russia will stabilize over the next few days.

"We hope that in the next few days, we will witness some stabilization, which means that the number of cases will increase in a stable manner. Currently, it is unstable," she said in an interview with the Echo of Moscow radio station published on Monday.

"The epidemic is still at the growth phase, unfortunately. The growth rate is declining, but slowly," Vujnovic added.

The WHO envoy stressed that Russia has one of the lowest lethality rates from COVID-19 in the world so far, while the measures taken in the country to combat the spread of the coronavirus are in accordance with global recommendations. The scale of population testing is also increasing, she added.

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 2,414,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 165,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 629,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, a total of 47,121 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 3,446 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 405 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.

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