Coronavirus live news: the first case of a refugee testing positive | World news | The Guardian
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Over in Greece authorities have announced that an asylum seeker has contracted coronavirus, in what has been the first case of a refugee testing positive for the potentially lethal disease since the outbreak of the virus at the end of February.
Manos Logothetis, a senior official at the migration ministry, told the Guardian that a woman was diagnosed with the virus two days after giving birth in an Athens hospital on 28 March.
She may well have contracted it in the hospital. We are still awaiting the results as to whether the baby has also tested positive.
The woman, accommodated in a migrant camp hosting up to 2,500 people on the Greek mainland, remained in the hospital.
As the first recorded case among tens of thousands of migrants and refugees living in vastly overcrowded holding facilities in the country, the news has been received with trepidation. More than 42,000 men, women and children are currently held in reception centres on the five Aegean islands – Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos – facing the Turkish coast.
Appalling conditions in the camps provide what medics fear are exceptionally high-risk environments for Covid-19 to spread. “Authorities are tracing her recent contacts,” the health ministry spokesman and infectious diseases expert, Sotiris Tsiodras, told reporters on Tuesday. A man who lived with the woman had tested negative, he said.
To date, Greek officials have confirmed 1,314 cases of coronavirus. The Covid-19 death toll currently stands at 49 – much lower than in other European countries.
Of the 102 new cases reported overnight, 20 had originated from the staff of a passenger ship, chartered by a US cruise operator, and anchored off Piraeus.