BEIJING, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

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CANBERRA -- Coronavirus restrictions are costing the Australian economy billions of dollars every week, the country's treasury has revealed.

In a speech to the National Press Club (NPC) on Tuesday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg revealed that the shutdown aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19 is costing the economy about four billion Australian dollars (2.5 billion U.S. dollars) per week.

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CAIRO -- Egypt has carried out the highest number of clinical trials in the Middle East and Africa in a bid to help find a treatment for coronavirus, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar said Tuesday.

"Egypt conducted 22 trials out of a total of 30 carried out in Africa and 44 in Middle Eastern countries," the minister said in a statement.

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SOFIA -- Bulgarian customs inspectors have seized smuggled 498,000 protective masks, 54,600 bottles of antibacterial gel and 2,300 sets of protective clothing at the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint, authorities said Tuesday.

The products that are currently in high demand due to the coronavirus spread were found in a truck, which was declared to be carrying detergents from Turkey to Romania, the National Customs Agency (NCA) said in a statement.

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RIGA -- Latvia has recorded the first day with zero new COVID-19 cases since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, the Baltic country's health authorities reported Tuesday.

The Latvian Center for Disease Prevention and Control said that none of the COVID-19 tests carried out over the past 24 hours came back positive.

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MOSCOW -- Russia has confirmed 10,102 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, raising its total number of infections to 155,370, its coronavirus response center said in a statement Tuesday.

Single-day increases have been over 10,000 for three consecutive days, the center's data showed.

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CAPE TOWN -- Researchers in South Africa on Monday vaccinated hundreds of health workers with a 100-year-old tuberculosis (TB) in clinical trial in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

TASK, a clinical research organization in Cape Town, conducted the trial at Tygerberg Hospital, an officially-designated COVID-19 treatment center in South Africa.

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WELLINGTON -- New Zealand reported no new COVID-19 case over the past 24 hours for two consecutive days, which was "very encouraging", Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said on Tuesday.

Bloomfield told a press conference that one probable case has been reclassified as not being the case, so the total case number dropped by one to 1,486.

The country's death toll remained unchanged at 20, Bloomfield said, adding four people are in hospital, with none in ICU.

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SEOUL -- South Korea reported three more cases of the COVID-19 compared to 24 hours ago as of 0:00 a.m. Tuesday local time, raising the total number of infections to 10,804.

It was the lowest daily increase in 77 days since Feb. 18. The daily caseload hovered below 20 for 18 straight days.

All the new cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 1,102. The domestic infection logged zero for the second consecutive day.