Ten new cases of Coronavirus were registered today, for a total of 48, Health Chief Charmaine Gauci said.
Addressing the media, she said that Malta has the first cases of Coronavirus that hit elderly persons, two men aged 70 and 73. The latter was already a patient at the hospital.
The 70-year-old of Maltese nationality, Gauci said, experienced symptoms on 9 March but it was only in the last hours that he tested positive to Coronavirus. This provides a different challenge to the authorities given the patient’s age, by Gauci said that the man was in a stable condition. The man, who had not travelled, had little contact and the authorities are still to established what led to the contagion.
Another two cases are two young women, who are relatives, aged 26 and 27. They were in Germany and Poland and returned via Berlin on 11 March. The two had already started to experience symptoms two days before their return to Malta, and they went into quarantine. As happens in these cases, contact tracing is being carried out to find out who were the passengers in proximity to them on the plane.
An Italian couple, a man and woman both aged 34 and resident in Malta, were also diagnosed with Coronavirus. They had not been abroad but had been in contact with another person who was diagnosed with Coronavirus in the past days after having been exposed to it at his place of work from a person who had travelled. The woman experienced symptoms on 12 March, and the man a day later.
The sixth case was of a Maltese 48-year-old woman who was in London between 1 and 7 March. She experienced symptoms on 17 March, and was in quarantine. Her family is now also in quarantine.
Two hospital patients have also contracted the disease. They are two men aged 57 and 73. They were diagnosed after the health authorities carried out tests on patients after a woman who was in hospital because of a fracture developed the disease. The two men were in a different ward than that of the original patient. These two patients were transferred to the infectious disease unit; other patients in the ward tested negative. The ward has been closed and hospital staff who had come into contact with these patients are in quarantine.
Another case is that of a Maltese man, aged 37, with no travel history but who had contact at work with a foreigner who came from the UK. He developed symptoms on 9 March. He works in a private company and a contact tracing exercise is being carried out.
A woman aged 26, a relative of another person who contracted the disease, also tested positive in the last 24 hours. She is from the same family of the woman who had travelled to Belgium, which had led to the contagion of two other members of the family, including the 3-year-old boy. So, in this case, from this cluster four people developed the disease, Gauci said.
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