The number of people known to be infected with coronavirus in the Netherlands has risen to 10, with three new cases in Tilburg, Gorinchem and Coevorden, health minister Bruno Bruins told a news conference on Sunday afternoon.

One of the new patients, a middle-aged woman, was being treated in intensive care for a lung infection at the Beatrix hospital in Gorichem. Officials only realised she had coronavirus after she was transferred to the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam on February 28.

According to the Telegraaf, during the period she was in hospital in Gorichem there was ‘no reason under RIVM protocols to test the patient for coronavirus’.

The Gorichem hospital has now been closed to visitors and new patients while they try to trace everyone who had been in contact with the woman while she was there. Officials say they do not yet know how she contracted the virus.

The other two new patients took part in the Carnival celebrations in Tilburg, where the first Dutch patient was taken ill, officials from the Dutch health institute RIVM said.

However, officials have not yet made a link between the three cases and it is not clear if the two were infected in Tilburg itself. They are all being treated at home.

So far 150 people have been tested for the virus after reporting to their doctor with symptoms.

Stay home

Bruins is advising people who have spend time in China, South Korea, Iran, northern Italy and Singapore to stay home from work for a day if they have breathing problems, even if these are only relatively minor.

If the symptoms become worse, they should then alert their family doctor by phone, Bruins said.

The first three primary Dutch patients had all been in northern Italy.