MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin denied on Thursday there was anything untoward with Russia’s official coronavirus death data after the World Health Organisation said this week that Russia’s low death rate was “difficult to understand”.

Russia has reported more than half a million cases of the new coronavirus, the third largest caseload in the world, and 6,532 deaths, a number that is many times lower than other countries with serious outbreaks.

Asked if the Kremlin thought the data was strange, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “no”, but that Russia’s consumer health regulator would be ready to explain the data to the World Health Organisation.