The virus passes over states not involved in major issues of world politics, and is spreading on territories where the global stakeholders’ interests collide. Of course, other countries are affected, but the virus does not present any danger for them. The virus has selected China, Iran, Italy and Spain as targets. Stuck between Spain and Italy is France. Their neighbours are affected less, if affected at all. In Mongolia on 23 March there was only one case, though the country is populated by as many Chinese as Mongolians and the borders between China and Mongolia have remained open.
Russia introduced a drug for the treatment of a new type of coronavirus. The drug is based on the antimalarial drug mefloquine and is also developing an effective and safe system of prevention against coronavirus.
This is part of the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign around the coronavirus. According to WHO, to date, there is no specific medicine recommended to prevent or treat the new coronavirus (2019-nCoV). The anti-malarial drug mefloquine has been considered as a drug against a new type of coronavirus in several countries. The tests were carried out, for example, by China or France. However, its efficacy has not been verified and extensive clinical trials would have to be carried out for general use. A French medicine watchdog ANSM even has warned of the dangerous side effects of malaria drugs being used against the novel coronavirus due to some crucial side effects that appeared at several patients who used them for self-medication.