COVID-19: Russia asks citizens to avoid foreign travel

As COVID-19 rattles the world over, a senior Russian official has called on citizens of the country to refrain from non-essential travel abroad over fears about the growing number of coronavirus cases internationally.

Anna Popova, who is the head of Russia's consumer health watchdog, told local news agencies that Russians should stay put to avoid contracting the virus, according to Reuters news agency.

"In order to consider yourself protected today, first of all, possible future trips outside the native country need to be reduced as much as possible," Popova said. "Now is a time when it is not worth leaving Russia."

Russian has relatively very few cases of the virus despite sharing  a very large border with the China where the deadly virus originated in December last year..