The Generalitat of Catalonia confirmed on Tuesday the first case of coronavirus registered in this community. This is a 36-year-old Italian woman residing in Barcelona who has just arrived from a trip to Italy and who yesterday went to the Hospital Clínic with symptoms. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health has confirmed that it has received the alert from the Generalitat and that the National Center for Microbiology will practice the confirmation test in the next few hours.
The Secretary of Public Health of the Catalan Executive, Jon Guix, explained that the patient was in the area of Bergamo and Milan between February 12 and 22. Guix has called for calm and recalled that 80% of coronavirus cases are mild. On the other hand, Assumpta Ricard, manager of integral health processes of Servei Català de la Salut, has ensured that “the system is prepared” to deal with cases that may appear, as has been demonstrated in other epidemiological outbreaks.
With this there would be four cases detected in Spain that have tested positive for coronavirus. The last one, an Italian doctor who went to a clinic in Tenerife on Monday with symptoms of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The Italian doctor, who had spent a week on vacation in a hotel in Tenerife with his wife, tested positive in a first test conducted at the University Hospital Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where he is admitted and isolated in good health status, according to sources of the Ministry of Health. His wife and two other people in his circle also remain under observation in the same hospital, although they have not had symptoms of infection.
The first case of coronavirus detected in Spain was confirmed on February 1 on the island of La Gomera, also in the Canarian archipelago. The patient was a German citizen who had been in contact in Bavaria with a co-worker who in turn had been infected by an employee who contracted the virus in Wuhan. The citizen was isolated at the Hospital Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe on the island of La Gomera. Several people were under observation, but did not manifest the virus.
In Palma de Mallorca the second case was confirmed on February 10. The infected was a British citizen who was infected in the Alps and was isolated in the hospital of Son Espases, with a mild diagnosis. The man resides in Mallorca with his family and returned on January 29 from a ski trip to the French Alps during which he maintained close contact with a group in which six other Britons were diagnosed.