Concern has arisen in Spain after cases of ‘unexplained’ coronavirus patients were flagged up – having caught the disease despite not travelling to countries where the virus is present.
Coronovirus patients in the Madrid region have contracted the Covid-19 virus – without travelling to any country considered a risk area.
The Municipality of Torrejón de Ardoz in the Madrid region have a handful of patients under medical care.
Now the Spanish health authorities are analysing cases of coronavirus infections – of unknown origin.
At least five people in Torrejón de Ardoz are affected, with Doctors unable to trace the infections to any other patient.
In Spain, approximately 90% of confirmed cases are imported.
Torrejón de Ardoz has a population of 130,000.
A 73-year-old male, infected with coronavirus, has been moved to Carlos III Hospital in Madrid.
Meanwhile a 71-year-old Ecuadorian woman – resident in Torrejón – visited her home country and tested positive for coronavirus. She is in hospital in Ecuador.
The Ecuadorian Government has announced it is looking to locate 287 passengers who were on the woman’s flight – from Madrid to Guayaquil – on February 14.
Concern has arisen, due to the coronavirus spreading in Torrejón, and the authorities are unable to find the origin.
Fernando Simón, Director of the Health Ministry’s co-ordination Centre for Health Alerts and Emergencies, confirmed one of the outbreaks in Torrejón was linked to an Evangelical religious group.
“In the next few days we will see the real extent of this episode,” a health expert specialising in infectious diseases said.
“Sometimes it is limited and the number of cases shows a linear rise, until they self-contain. Other times, growth is exponential. We have to be alert to see what happens now,” they added.
In Spain’s northern Basque Country region, a doctor at Txagorritxu Hospital, in the city of Álava, has tested positive for the coronavirus.
He had not travelled to any country with a reported outbreak, and had only been to Spain’s southern Andalusia region in mid-February.
“We are unable to confirm whether this trip is the origin of the infection,” said the Basque health department chief, Nekane Murga.
In Malaga authorities are monitoring the coronavirus situation after recording the first locally transmitted coronavirus case in Spain. Miguel Ángel Benítez, 62, was infected having attended a meeting in Malaga, and being in contact with a work colleague, who contracted the disease after socialising a couple from Shanghai, in Spain’s Costa del Sol.
Mr Benítez is at the origin of additional coronavirus cases in the area, however health authorities know the trail of infections.
