People in several towns in Lombardy have been told to stay at home and avoid social contact.
“There have already been clusters (of the deadly virus) in Europe – in Germany and France,” Health Minister Roberto Speranza said.
“Italy is ready. We had already prepared a plan because it was evident that what happened could happen.
Earlier – Six people have been infected with the coronavirus in Lombardy, regional welfare councillor Giulio Gallera said Friday. They are all about 40 years of age.
Gallera urged people in the towns of Codogno, Castiglione d’Adda and Casalpusterlengo to stay at home and avoid social contact. He said some 250 people had been placed in isolation and would be tested for the deadly virus. All six infected people are in serious condition, Lombardy Governor Attilio Fontana said.
Giuseppe Ippolito, scientific director of Italy’s top infectious disease hospital, the Spallanzani in Rome, said “the cases reported in Lombardy are the first registered on Italian territory and take us into a new phase.
“For the first time we have moved from cases of importation to cases of local circulation of the virus”.
The first case is a man, 38, who is believed to have got the virus after dining with a friend who had come back from China. The other two initially infected people are the 38-year-old’s wife, a pregnant teacher on maternity leave, and a third person who went to hospital suffering symptoms of pneumonia after doing sport with the 38-year-old.
The teacher had not been in contact with children. The other three are clients of a bar Codogno, near Lodi, owned by the father of the man who did sport with the 38-year-old, sources said. The three customers never came into direct contact with the 38-year-old, according to the sources.
The town has closed schools, bars, eateries, discos, dancehalls, gambling arcades and sporting facilities as a precaution at least until Sunday. The 38-year-old man was said to be in a serious condition, with respiratory insufficiency – but Gallera said his condition had “improved slightly” since Thursday night, when he was admitted.
