The first case of the COVID-19 coronavirus has been registered in Ukraine's Chernivtsi Region. A man who had high temperature and dry cough has been hospitalized, Deputy Health Minister Viktor Lyashko has said.
"Yesterday I said that we had four suspected cases. Today this suspicion was confirmed with regard to one person. All the samples were handed over to the World Health Organization virus lab. But the case was registered in Ukraine, therefore we started working with contact persons. There are not many contact persons, all of them are known to local epidemiologists," he said.
He noted that the patient had returned from Italy.
"The family – a man and woman – isolated themselves. Two days [28 February] after self-isolation the man started to display the symptoms suggesting the coronavirus infection," Lyashko said, adding that the man then sought medical assistance and was eventually admitted to an infectious diseases hospital.
His wife does not seem to have contracted the virus.
Lyashko said that the healthcare system proved ready for the first case of the virus.