A foreign student has been diagnosed with respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus that was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
On February 27, the Iranian national who is studying at the Belarusian National Technical University tested positive for coronavirus, Health Minister Uladzimir Karanik said.
The student from Iran, as well as the persons he communicated to, have been placed in closed boxes of the hospital for infectious diseases in Minsk.
“The educational institution which the case of coronavirus infection was exposed in has been put on individual study mode. It is the Belarusian National Technical University,” the top official stressed.
According to him, the Iranian citizen was summoned for examination to Polyclinic Nr 33 in Minsk. At that moment, the student from abroad said he had no health problems.
“But low-grade fever (37.3) and his red throat got the doctors’ attention. He was rushed to the hospital for infectious diseases, where swabs were taken and then the presence of coronavirus was confirmed. Now we are analysing the strain’s epidemiology,” the minister added.
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 82,000 persons have caught the infection; over 2,800 have died.
On February 27, another nine states (Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Norway, Pakistan, Romania, and North Macedonia) reported cases of COVID-19.
The WHO urges people to take care of their health and protect others by following the recommendations.
