Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ireland rises to 13
People's Daily Online
(Xinhua) 09:40, March 06, 2020
DUBLIN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Seven new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Ireland on Thursday, bringing to 13 the total number of such cases in the country, according to the Irish Department of Health.
The new cases include four males from the east of Ireland, who had recently traveled to northern Italy, two females from the country's west, who had contracted the virus from a confirmed case, and one male from the south of the country, who is identified as the country's first case of community transmission, meaning the origin of his infection is not known, said the department.
The patient from the country's south is being treated at an intensive care unit at Cork University Hospital (CUH), said officials with the department, adding that the patient received medical treatment at CUH last week and was discharged before he was recently readmitted to the hospital and tested positive for the virus.
A tracing for all the close contacts with the seven new confirmed cases as well as the previously confirmed six cases has been under way, said the department, adding that the country is now in its first containment phase in the fight against the coronavirus, which focuses on identifying all the cases no matter how mild they are.
If the country fails to contain the spread of the disease effectively, it will move to the second mitigation phase which will focus on treating the most severely affected patients, said the department.
Ireland reported its first confirmed COVID-19 case on Feb. 29. The case involved a boy student from a local secondary school in the east of Ireland, who had travelled to an affected area in northern Italy.
To date, most of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ireland are associated with travel to northern Italy, which is the hardest hit country by the coronavirus outbreak in Europe.
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