A hotel in Tenerife is under lockdown after an Italian guest tested positive for coronavirus – and the infection is spreading across Europe, with its first confirmed cases in Austria, Croatia and Switzerland.
The H10 Adeje Palace hotel was put on lockdown on Tuesday morning, with Spanish media reporting that as many as 1,000 tourists staying at the complex are not being allowed to leave.
The doctor – who is reportedly from Lombardy in northern Italy – was on holiday when he was diagnosed with Covid-19. He is now being kept in isolation in hospital.
His diagnosis comes amid a battle by authorities in northern Italy to limit an outbreak of coronavirus, with 11 towns currently under quarantine.
More than 200 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Italy, while seven have died.
The first two cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Austria on Tuesday, with two people in the province of Tyrol – a province that borders northern Italy – diagnosed with the infection.
Covid-19 was also detected in Croatia and Switzerland for the first time, with each country documenting one case.
In the hotel in Tenerife, British guest Christopher Betts told the Reuters news agency that everyone staying at the H10 Adeje Palace had been asked to stay in their rooms.
“We can see from the window there are security officers outside the hotel and about 50 hotel employees,” Betts said.
“We have received no information whatsoever,” he added, saying he had not yet been tested for the virus.
Meanwhile 27-year-old Hannah Green, who is on holiday with her boyfriend and one-year-old son, described the communication from the hotel as “non-existent”.
“We woke up to a note under our door this morning saying for health reasons not to leave our room,” she told the PA news agency. “I called downstairs to reception as soon as I saw it and they wouldn’t tell us anything.
“So I quickly got on my phone and googled and saw a man had tested positive for coronavirus, so I basically assumed it was that. But since then we’ve had nothing from the hotel – no one has told us anything or what’s going to happen.”
A spokesperson for the Canary Island’s health department said that it was “checking people who had contact with the patient”, including those staying in the hotel.
The case is the third incident of coronavirus identified in Spain, with a German tourist in La Gomera and a British man in Mallorca having also tested positive for the infection.
In China – where the epidemic was first detected – the number of cases has now reached almost 78,000, while 2,663 people have died.
Meanwhile, South Korea now has the second largest number of cases in the world, with 893 people having been diagnosed and eight patients having died.
Clusters of infection have also emerged in Iran and Italy, and there are concerns the new outbreaks could signal a serious new stage in the global spread of the illness.
Are you staying at the H10 Adeje Palace hotel in Tenerife? Want to share your experience of what is happening? Contact us at uknewsteam@huffpost.com