MOSCOW, March 28. /TASS/. More than 166,000 people in Russia are placed under medical monitoring due to coronavirus spread, the press service for the Russian consumer watchdog said Saturday.

"In 2020, 250,989 people have been placed under medical monitoring overall across Russia. As for March 27, 166,739 people remain under the monitoring," the statement says.

It is also highlighted that as of Thursday, the watchdog’s laboratories carried out 223,509 coronavirus tests.

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 160 countries, including Russia.

The WHO on March 11 declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. As of now, more than 575,000 people have been infected around the world and over 26,000 have died. Russia reported 1,036 cases of infection, while four people died and 45 patients recovered.