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After it announced its first confirmed coronavirus case, Wednesday, stating that the patient had returned from Morocco, the Slovenian health authorities said, Friday, that the number of infected citizens has reached six.
According to the Slovenian news agency, three of the infected persons «had been on a trip to Morocco, returning via Italy’s Venice airport on a commercial flight in the afternoon of 29 February before continuing home».
Health authorities revealed that the first person who tested positive for coronavirus is a 60-year-old man who travelled with 19 other people for a ten-days motorcycle trip around Morocco. The same group of travellers includes 16 Slovenians and three Croatians.
«The health authorities said that he (the patient) had been in contact with seven persons in the community health centre in the Ljubljana borough of Vič, which the man visited on Wednesday, feeling unwell», the same source added.
Slovenia reported that the physician who attended to the patient, who had been to Morocco, was sent to a hospital in Ljubljan to be quarantined. Slovenian sanitary authorities have also notified Croatia about three of its citizens who accompanied the first coronavirus case during his trip to Morocco.
Although the first patient travelled to Slovenia through Italy, one of the most affected European countries by the virus, the Slovenian Health Minister Ales Sabeder stressed on Wednesday, during a press conference, that the patient «was infected in Morocco».
«It looks like this is an imported case, it seems that the person was infected in Morocco», Maja Socan from the National Institute of Public Health said during the same news conference. «Some days have passed since the patient has returned to Slovenia ... so we have to identify who the person was in contact with ... to prevent the spread of the infection», she added.
For the record, Morocco confirmed its second coronavirus case, Thursday. The two patients have both been to Italy, which recorded 107 deaths and 3,089 cases.
