Algeria Registers First Coronavirus Death

Algeria has registered its first death from the novel coronavirus, the health ministry announced on Thursday. 

No further details on the death were provided in the ministry statement, cited by the official APS press agency.

Another five new cases of COVID-19 have been recorded, bringing the total number of confirmed cases on Algerian soil to 24, the ministry added.

A 25th case -- and the first registered in the country -- concerns an Italian who tested positive in February but who has since left Algeria.

Of the five new cases announced on Thursday, two are Algerians who had been in France.

They have been hospitalised in the Souk Ahras area of eastern Algeria, and the Kabylie region east of the capital Algiers.

The three others were being treated in a hospital in the Blida area, southwest of Algiers, the health ministry said.

Already in Blida, 17 members of the same family had been infected with the virus, in connection with confirmed cases among Algerians in France.

The health ministry urged all Algerians planning to travel to countries where the novel coronavirus is active to defer their trips, and for Algerians returning from those countries to postpone "family visits unless absolutely necessary".