RAMALLAH, Monday, April 6, 2020 (WAFA) – Palestine Monday evening confirmed a new coronavirus case, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the occupied territories to 253.

Speaking in a daily briefing in Ramallah, Interior Ministry’s spokesman Brigader Ghassan Nimer announced that a new case tested positive for the novel coronavirus. He identified the new case as a resident of Bani Naim town, east of Hebron city.

The confirmed case is one of four workers from the town who worked for a candy factory in Israel and tested positive for the virus. The four workers were among a group of 47 workers who were tested for the virus after returning from their workplaces to the town and forced into home quarantine, Nimer elaborated.

He added that 23 infected cases have recovered, including five cases from the southern districts.

Among the 253 confirmed cases are 167 males and 86 females, including the case of the women, in her 60s, who died a day after she tested positive for the virus in Biddu town, northwest of Jerusalem.

He commented on the situation in the Thabet Thabet government hospital that has been repurposed for virus cases in the northern west Bank city of Tulkarem after an infected man entered the medical facility.

According to Nimer, the 16 medical staff working at the hospital were tested for the virus, and the test results were negative. Nevertheless, they were placed in quarantine at the hospital, and would be retested once again after five days.

He concluded that since the start of the coronavirus outbreak in the Palestinian territories, a total of 13,605 suspected cases were tested, including 1,200 tests that were conducted in the last 24 hours.

K.F.