The Dominican Republic confirmed its first case of the novel coronavirus, while Mexican officials confirmed the fifth case in the country.
Dominican Health Minister Rafael Sanchez Cardenas said in a press conference that the country’s first coronavirus patient is a 62-year-old Italian national who arrived in the Dominican Republic on February 22.
The patient only started displaying symptoms of the virus after his arrival in the country and has since been placed in isolation, Sanchez Cardenas said.
Meanwhile, health officials in the Mexican state of Chiapas confirmed that an 18-year-old student from the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez had tested positive for the virus, taking the total number of cases in Mexico to five.
State health secretary Jose Manuel Cruz Castellanos said the patient had tested positive upon returning from Milan, where the school she was attending decided to close its doors due to the sharp rise in coronavirus cases there.
Brazil and Ecuador also confirmed their first cases of the virus this week.
The countries have two cases and one case, respectively.
Ecuador has confirmed five cases of the new coronavirus in patients who all had direct contact with an elderly woman who brought the virus to the Andean country from Spain, health minister Catalina Andramuno said.
The woman, an Ecuadorean citizen who resides in Spain, arrived in Ecuador on a direct flight from Madrid on February 14 without presenting symptoms, but soon began to feel ill and was admitted to one of the public hospitals the government equipped to deal with the new virus.
The announcement brought the total number of confirmed cases in the country to six.
The five new cases are all relatives of the woman who had direct contact with her since she arrived, Andramuno said, adding that they were all quarantined at their homes.
“They are presenting mild symptoms,” Andramuno told reporters in the southern city of Guayaquil. “We are monitoring them, we are controlling them.”
Authorities are also monitoring some 177 people who could have come into contact with the initial patient, including passengers on her flight, other relatives, and health care workers.
Ecuador’s health ministry earlier on Sunday said it had increased medical checks at ports of entry for travelers from China, Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain and Mexico.
Authorities have also suspended public events in the Guayas and Los Ríos provinces, where the cases have been reported.