Last month, eleven students of the Rechytsa district schools were on holiday in Italy. The group returned to Belarus on February, 28. Belarusian health professionals are monitoring their physical condition and well-being.
“As part of preventive medical measures, the children arrived at the district social and pedagogical centre. The move was authorised by the Health Ministry. They are not in quarantine,” the local authorities stress.
The schoolers and their teacher are now under the supervision of medical workers all day round; catering and classes being arranged.
A number of COVID-19 cases are growing sharply in Europe. Currently, Italy is the most affected: nearly 1,700 persons have caught the novel coronavirus.
As reported earlier, 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. 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 ministry reported that one of the Belarusian tests from Vitsebsk region had revealed that a fragment of RNA ‘may belong’ to the 2019-nCoV.
“At present, three patients are suspected of having coronavirus infection in health care institutions of Belarus. All three are in satisfactory condition, there are no clinical manifestations of the disease,” the Belarusian officials said.
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. By the moment, more than 89,000 persons have been infected; over 2,900 have died.
The WHO urges people to take care of their health and protect others by following the recommendations.
