A special disinfection tunnel has been set up to protect Russia's President Vladimir Putin from the virus.

Anyone visiting his official Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, where he receives visitors, has to pass through this tunnel, said state-controlled RIA news agency.

The agency described the disinfectant as a fine cloud of liquid that covers people's clothes and any exposed upper body flesh.

It comes after Putin's spokesman, Dmistry Peskov, earlier in April said that anyone meeting Putin in person was tested for the virus. Peskov revealed that he himself had been infected a month later, reported Reuters.

Russia has reported more than 500,000 infections, the third highest number of cases in the world after Brazil and the United States, which it says is down to its mass testing programme.