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Austria apparently has the first cases of infection with the new type of coronavirus. Initial tests confirmed its presence in two people hospitalized in the regional Tyrolean metropolis of Innsbruck. On Tuesday, Tyrol’s governor Günther Platter informed the APA agency about this. Croatia also announced its first confirmed case of infection with the new coronavirus on Tuesday. According to the local government, it concerns a young man from Zagreb who returned from Milan.
The patients, who are in quarantine in the Austrian hospital, come from Lombardy in northern Italy, from where they returned some time ago. However, they have long been living in Innsbruck. Both are 24 years old. They now have a mild fever.
According to Platter, the presence of the virus was confirmed by the first series of tests; results of further tests are not yet available. “The probability is very high that the suspicion in these cases will be confirmed,” the governor said. He expects the test results to be known later on Tuesday.
Emergency measures
Tyrol, which borders northern Italy where the coronavirus is spreading, will now set up a special clinic at the Innsbruck hospital that will admit people suspected of being infected with the coronavirus.
Cases of infection with the new coronavirus are increasing in Europe. Italy now reports almost 300 cases, and several people have already died from the disease. Quarantine, travel restrictions and lockdowns in the north of the country have affected 15 million people.
Three cases of infection have also been recorded in neighboring Spain. Sporadic occurrences of the disease have been reported in other European countries as well, including Germany. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the occurrence of the coronavirus has not yet been confirmed.
Overall, more than 80,000 people have already been infected with the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which began spreading in China at the end of last year, and about 2,600 have died from it. Apart from Italy, the main hotspots of the outbreak outside mainland China are South Korea and Iran.
