The Ukrainian government has imposed a nationwide state of emergency because of the coronavirus pandemic for 30 days, until April 24.

"We are extending the quarantine and imposing a state of emergency on the state of Ukraine, throughout its entire territory, for 30 days until April 14, 2020," Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at a government meeting on Wednesday.

This measure could be extended if necessary, he said.

In particular, the government made amendments to its earlier regulations, which extended the previously introduced quarantine measures from April 3 to April 24.

In presenting the draft directive, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the document had been drawn up by the Interior Ministry, among other things, to designate an official to be in charge of efforts to respond to the natural medical-biological emergency of the national level and to put the unified state civil protection system on the tracks of an emergency situation.

In line with the decision, the deputy health minister and chief public health official has been appointed to be in charge of efforts in response to the natural medical-biological emergency of the national level.

The decision does not require extra expenditures, Avakov said. "First of all, we have to adopt a stabilization fund," he said.

As reported earlier, the government on March 23 imposed a state of emergency on the Donetsk, Ternopil, and Cherkasy regions. A state of emergency had earlier been declared in the Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernivtsi, Dnipropetrovsk, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions and in the city of Kyiv.