February 25, 2020 - 15:08 AMT
1000 quarantined in Canary Islands hotel after virus confirmed

A tourist hotel on the Canary Island hotel of Tenerife was placed in quarantine Tuesday, February 25 after an Italian doctor staying there tested positive for the new virus from China that has infected thousands worldwide, The Associated Press reports.

The press office for the town of Adeje said Tuesday that the H10 Adeje Palace hotel was in quarantine.

Spanish news media reported that some 1,000 tourists staying at the complex are not allowed to leave.

The Canary Islands, an archipelago located some 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of the African coast, is a popular vacation destination that attracts many northern Europeans all-year-around.

The Italian doctor who is positive for the COVID-19 disease has been quarantined in a local clinic while samples are analyzed in a hospital near Madrid to confirm the initial diagnosis, the archipelago’s President Ángel Víctor Torres announced late on Monday in a series of tweets.

It’s Spain’s third case of COVID-19 and the second in the islands that lie some 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of the African coast. A German tourist was quarantined earlier this month in the island of La Gomera and a British citizen in the Mediterranean’s Balearic Islands. Both were released after recovering and showing no further symptoms of the illness.