Europe

Home page

Europe

Three European countries more announce the first coronavirus case

28 February 2020 09:07 (UTC +04:00)

Three more European countries have announced the first coronavirus case, APA reports.

One of them is the Netherlands, which reported its first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus Thursday as its foothold in Europe continues to grow.

In a statement, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) said a man who lives in the town of Tilburg had been diagnosed with the virus after traveling to Italy’s Lombardy region a few days ago.

The institute said the man was placed in quarantine to prevent the virus from spreading.

Northern Ireland has also diagnosed its first case of coronavirus, bringing the UK's total to 16.

Authorities said the patient had travelled from northern Italy via Dublin and had showed a presumptive positive result, which would be confirmed by a lab in England.

It comes after health officials confirmed two new cases of the virus in England earlier on Thursday.

Those patients contracted the virus while they were in Italy and Tenerife.

Northern Ireland's chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said: "We have been planning for the first positive case in Northern Ireland and have made clear that it was a question of when not if.

"We have robust infection control measures in place which enable us to respond immediately. Our health service is used to managing infections and would assure the public that we are prepared."

Dr McBride said the case was not linked to a school trip to Italy. Northern Ireland's Public Health Agency said it is "working rapidly" to trace and check the patient's contacts to prevent further spread.

The third country is Lithuania.

The first case of novel coronavirus has been confirmed in Lithuania, the Health Ministry reported Friday.

According to the ministry, the patient contracted the new virus in Verona, Italy and has been quarantined in a hospital in Siauliai.The news comes as Italian authorities have urged tourists scared off by the coronavirus not to cancel their trips to the country. Over 500 people have been infected and 14 have succumbed to the disease.