MADRID, April 22. /TASS/. A total of 208,389 coronavirus cases have been recorded in Spain so far, the country’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

According to the ministry, 21,717 patients have died and 85,915 have recovered. As many as 4,211 new cases, 3,401 recoveries and 435 fatalities were confirmed in the past 24 hours.

Spain recorded its first coronavirus case on January 31. The number of patients started to grow rapidly after an outbreak had hit Italy. On March 14, the Spanish government declared a high alert over the coronavirus, restricting the movement of people across the country.

Coronavirus pandemic

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 2,500,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 177,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 696,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.