TASS - The Russian embassy in Iran does not plan to terminate the work of the consular department in Tehran due to the spread of coronavirus in the country, press officer of the Russian diplomatic mission Andrey Ganenko told TASS.

"At the moment, we are not planning to close the consular department," he said. Ganenko added that "no special instructions have yet been received regaring changes in the work of the embassy in connection with the spread of the coronavirus in Iran."

Information on the first cases of the disease in the country provoked by the novel coronavirus appeared on February 19. According to official figures, the number of infected in Iran has so far reached 43, eight of them have been fatal.

On December 31, Chinese authorities informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about an outbreak of an unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan - a large trade and industrial center in central China populated by 12 million people. The source of the outbreak is the COVID-19 coronavirus. Cases of COVID-19 have been detected in at least 27 countries, including Russia. The WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak in China a global health emergency. Currently, the total number of people infected with the novel coronavirus exceeds 78,700 with over 2,400 reported deaths, mostly in China. Meanwhile, over 23,000 patients have recovered to date.