Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that the first case of infection with the novel coronavirus has been registered in the country, in the capital city of Zagreb.

The patient is a 25-year-old man who is presenting mild symptoms of this disease, and has been admitted to the Fran Mihaljevic hospital in Zagreb where he was placed in quarantine.

The Ericsson Nikola Tesla tech company based in Zagreb issued a press release later on Tuesday, confirming that the person in question is one of their employees. He had travelled to Milan in northern Italy last week to attend a football match, with authorities suspecting that he might have picked up the virus there.

“Today at 11:30 am we received information that a Croatian national, who has been to Milan on February 19-21, is exhibiting mild symptoms of the disease. We are taking precautionary measures,” Health Minister, Vili Beros, said. 

The health services will now focus on tracking down all those with whom the infected man has been in contact since his return to the country, he added. 

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic had said on Monday that Croatia is prepared to take any measure necessary to contain the coronavirus, including coordinating with the Italian government.

“As the virus has spread across the world, Croatia raised preparedness levels,  our crisis management team has experienced staff and I expect them to engage fully. The message to the public is that all the relevant services are fully prepared,” Prime Minister Plenkovic said.

Meanwhile, nine workers from a Croatian company who had worked at a factory in the town of Pavia in Italy have been screened and quarantined in the northern city of Rijeka. The workers, contracted to a Karlovac-based company, had recently returned from an Italian factory where 20 cases have been confirmed by Italian health officials.

Only one of them seems to be showing signs of possible infection. Samples taken from them have been sent to Zagreb, and on Tuesday evening health officials said that all of them had tested negative for infection.

Another two suspected cases are undergoing testing as of 8 pm local time, head of the Fran Mihaljevic Hospital, Alemka Markotic, told N1.

Also on Tuesday, Croatia’s Health Minister, Vili Beros attended a meeting in Rome hosted by Italy’s Health Minister Roberto Speranza, with their counterparts from France, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Austria.

Beros told Croatian reporters that the ministers agreed that there would be no border closures due to the outbreak, as it “would not yield adequate results,” and that these six countries would standardise travel information and protocols and would exchange information on the developing crisis.

Croatia’s foreign ministry issued a travel advisory on Tuesday, recommending caution when travelling to Italy and its regions of Lombardia, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, Piemonte, and Lazio. On Monday, the country’s education ministry told all elementary and middle schools to cancel trips to Italy for at least a month. 

In neighbouring Bosnia, three Chinese tourists who showed signs of a possible infection were admitted to a Sarajevo hospital, before testing negative on Tuesday. In Slovenia, 44 suspected cases have been identified, but all tested negative, the country’s health ministry tweeted on Tuesday afternoon. 

Also on Tuesday, first two cases have been confirmed in Austria, both in persons who had recently spent time in the north of Italy, and both have been quarantined in the city of in Innsbruck.

According to an interactive map developed by Johns Hopkins University which tracks the outbreak in real time, there have been 80,000 confirmed cases globally since the outbreak began in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year. The total figure includes nearly 28,000 recoveries and about 2,700 deaths from the disease.

The hardest hit European country is Italy, which by Tuesday reported 322 confirmed cases and 11 deaths, most of them located in the northern part of the country.

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