On March 10, the Belarusian Health Ministry of Belarus has officially confirmed another three coronavirus cases in the country.
According to the agency, the diseased persons are in satisfactory condition, they are not febrile.
A day earlier, Belarusian health workers announced that the number of the infected with COVID-19 might rise to nine.
“We received the results confirming the presence of the coronavirus’ RNA in the tests of three persons who had close contact with the infected with COVID-19. If re-tests prove it, one might talk of nine coronavirus cases in Belarus,” Health Minister Uladzimir Karanik said on Monday.
The first case was detected and confirmed in Belarus in late February: an Iranian national who is studying at the Belarusian National Technical University tested positive. A week before, he came to the country from Baku. On February 29, the Health Ministry said that the father of a girlfriend of the BNTU student from Iran could also be infected. The agency called the results of his tests ‘questionable’.
On March 1, the Health Ministry reported that a test of resident of Vitsebsk region revealed that a fragment of RNA ‘may belong’ to the 2019-nCoV. Shortly before, the woman and her colleagues had been to Italy on a business trip. On March 3, the ministry registered the fourth patient with coronavirus; a day later, two more COVID-19 cases were recorded.
At the end of 2019, China alerted the World Health Organization to the outbreak of a pneumonia-like disease in the city of Wuhan that has about 11 mln residents. Later, the infecting agent was defined as coronavirus 2019-nCoV, then COVID-2019. As of March 10, nearly 116,000 cases of COVID-19 were registered worldwide, of which 4,o87 were fatal. South Korea and Iran are among the most-affected countries. A number of the diseased is growing sharply in Europe as well; over 9,000 residents of Italy have caught the novel coronavirus.
The WHO urges people to take care of their health and protect others by following the recommendations.
