Bosnia, Slovenia confirm first cases of coronavirus

BELGRADE, Serbia

Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia on Thursday confirmed the first cases of the new coronavirus in the countries.

One of the two entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska's Health Minister Alen Seranic reported at a press conference that a person residing in the city of Banja Luka was infected with the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19.

Health care institutions in the country are urging citizens to not panic.

"We have the first reported case of a virus corona. This is a middle-aged person, an employee in Italy who returned from Italy late last month.

"He resided here in Banja Luka and was referred to the service according to the recommendations and then referred to the Clinical Center. Currently, the patient is isolated at the RS Clinical Center, his condition is good, there are no problems," Seranic said.

He added that the child of the family is also carrying the virus.

The child's school in Banja Luka city has suspended the education until Monday for disinfection.

It is stated that all measures are now being taken to find those who are potentially infected as well as the contacts of the infected.

Mayor of Banja Luka Igor Radojicic said the disinfection in the school is underway.

"We will evaluate the need for disinfection of other facilities," Radojicic added.

Director of the RS Institute of Public Health Branislav Zeljkovic said the institute will also test the students of the school, during the day.

"We don't need panic, we need extra caution," said Zeljkovic.

Meanwhile, Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Sarec said the first case of COVID-19 was detected in his country.

Slovenia's Health Minister Ales Sabeder said the person detected with the virus had traveled from Morocco to Italy and then to Slovenia.

COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan, China, last December and has now spread to over 80 countries.

The global death toll is over 3,200, with more than 95,000 confirmed cases, according to the WHO.

Notably, some 52,000 former patients who contracted the virus have recovered.

The World Health Organization, which had declared the outbreak an international health emergency, recently updated the global risk level to “very high”.