London, Apr 6 (IANS): London's Heathrow Airport will shut two terminals in the coming weeks due to a significant reduction in the number of passenger flights amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The airport will temporarily move airline operations from Terminals Three and Four into Terminals Two and Five in the coming weeks, Xinhua news agency quoted a statement on its website as saying on Sunday.

"COVID-19 is an unpredictable epidemic that continues to have severe impacts on the global aviation industry... We cannot predict when operations will completely return to normal," it said.

"While the number of passenger flights operating out of Heathrow has reduced by 75 per cent, we are making sure that cargo flights carrying essential medical supplies, ventilators and medicines, as well as food supplies, remain able to touch down in the UK."

In the last week of March, Heathrow saw a 409 per cent increase in cargo only air traffic, compared to the average seen before the pandemic.

Over 40 per cent of the Britain's pharmaceutical products such as medicines, vaccines and respirators, are imported via Heathrow.

Figures from Heathrow shows that the airport served 80.1 million passengers in 2018, with a total of 475,624 flights taking off from the west London site in the same year.

The announcement comes as the number of coronavirus cases in the UK has increased to 48,440, while the death toll stood at 4,943.