- Italian doctor becomes third case of coronavirus in Spain
An Italian doctor has tested positive for coronavirus in Tenerife, the region’s health authorities said on Monday. In accordance with the protocol, the man is isolated in a hospital in the south of the island while a second opinion on his test results are being sought from Madrid.
The doctor, who is said to be a doctor from the region of Lombardy, was on holiday in in the south of the island. This confirms the third case of coronavirus in Spain.
The analyses have been carried out at the University Hospital Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria with tests supplied by the Ministry of Health. Today, Tuesday, the results from a second test are being processed carried out at the National Center for Microbiology of the Carlos III Health Institute.
Meanwhile, the authorities have put over a thousand tourists staying at the H10 Costa Adeje hotel, where the doctor was residing with his wife, into quarantine. There is currently no further information regarding their situation.
Two relatives of the doctor are also also under observation in the same hospital but have both tested negative to the virus.
According to sources from the Ministry, the Italian doctor volunteered himself to at a health centre on the island and asked to have the tests carried out because he suspected that he had the virus. However he said that he did not believe he had been infected by having been in direct contact with a coronavirus patient.
This is the third case to be registered in Spain, although to date all of the patients have been foreigners. Now the health authorities will have to trace the previous contacts of this Italian man to find out if there could have been more infections.
Despite the new case the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa , said that “we must not fall into a situation of alarmism” adding that he wanted to convey “a message of confidence in the national health system and in our medical professionals”.
He is the third person to test positive for the virus in Spain after a British man in Mallorca on Feb. 9 and a German man on the Canary Island of La Gomera on Feb. 1.
