The birth in the North Ossetia city of Beslan follows one in mid-April in Peru, which health officials there said was the second known case of a COVID-19 positive newborn worldwide.

In North Ossetia, "a pregnant woman was infected by the coronavirus, and her baby was born infected", a regional health ministry spokesman was quoted by the state agency TASS as saying.

"They are now at home, their state is satisfactory," the spokesman added.

The head of the hospital's maternity unit, Hassan Tagaiev, was quoted by local television as saying that 17 of 35 women who were about to give birth there had tested positive for COVID-19.

Beslan was the site of a hostage crisis in 2004 that left 300 civilians dead, including 186 children, after Islamist gunmen seized a school and security forces launched an assault.

Russia currently reports more than 280,000 cases of the coronavirus, placing it second worldwide behind the United States for infections.

It also says that 2,631 people have died, a number that critics have called into question.