Hungary, Slovenia report first coronavirus cases
05 March, 2020
Hungary and Slovenia reported their first confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus on Wednesday in two Iranian students and a third patient who recently travelled back from Morocco via Italy.
"Two patients have already been taken into health care because of coronavirus infections," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a Facebook video message.
"Two foreigners, students studying in Hungary, Iranians, they are symptom-free it appears, but confirmed as infected," he said.
Dr Janos Szlavik at the Central Hospital of Southern Pest told reporters at a news conference that both patients had visited family in Iran recently and that their roommates were being taken into quarantine.
Authorities were making efforts to establish their travel history within Hungary and who they had been in connection with, Szlavik said.
In neighbouring Slovenia, Health Minister Ales Sabeder told reporters the country's first case involved a "patient, aged around 60 who returned from Morocco via Italy" a couple of days ago.
The patient had visited a family group doctor before being tested and was currently in hospital in the administrative centre Ljubljana, he added.
While caseloads have steadily declined in the virus epicentre China, infections and deaths are rising in Asia and Europe, with cases appearing in new countries nearly every day.
A lot more than 90,000 people have already been infected and around 3,200 have died worldwide from the virus, the vast majority in China where COVID-19 first emerged late this past year.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has so far stopped short of declaring a pandemic, though has said the world must plan the possibility.
The virus has already reached over 80 countries and territories all over the world, with South Korea, Iran and Italy emerging as hotspots outside China.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com