MADRID, April 21. /TASS/. At least 204,178 coronavirus cases have been recorded in Spain since the beginning of the outbreak, the country’s Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday.

It noted that 21,282 people had died and 82,514 patients had recovered. Over the past 24 hours, the number of coronavirus cases has risen by 3,968, while 430 people have died. Spain recorded the highest death toll on April 1, when 950 coronavirus patients died.

The first coronavirus case in Spain was confirmed on January 31. The number of infected people began to grow dramatically after the outbreak in Italy. In mid-March, the Spanish cabinet announced high alert due to coronavirus spread. This measure enabled the authorities to restrict citizens’ movement across the country except for urgent reasons.

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 2,484,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 170,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 652,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.