ZAGREB, July 29, 2020 – Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic Radman confirmed on Wednesday that four female employees at the ministry had coronavirus, saying he was tested before meeting his Slovenian counterpart yesterday and that he was negative.
Speaking to the press, he told that two ministry staff were positive on Saturday and that now they were four. “We have disinfected the whole ministry and everyone who was in close contact with those infected is self-isolating… We are in touch with epidemiologists, following their directions.”
The minister said he had not been in contact with the four staffers. He said he was tested yesterday morning and that he was negative.
I called the Slovenian foreign minister, with whom I met yesterday, when I went to get tested, and I also told him the results so as to avoid any doubts, he added.
As for the source of the infection in the ministry, Grlic Radman said a female employee might have contracted the virus at a place where there were a number of people.
SDP MP says Foreign Ministry new coronavirus hotspot
Earlier on Wednesday MP Domagoj Hajdukovic of the Social Democratic Party said that the Foreign Ministry was a new coronavirus hotspot, with six persons infected.
“According to my information, we have a new infection hotspot, the ministry. The first case was recorded at the end of last week in the ministry’s secretariat. New infections have been confirmed today, six in all,” he said in parliament.
Hajdukovic said quite a few people were ordered to self-isolate and asked Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic Radman, who was in the chamber, if he had been in contact with them and if he was tested.
MP speculates that Bosnia may have been source of infection for ministry employees
As for a possible source of infection, he said “many people from the ministry were helping out” with the vote in Croatia’s July 5 parliamentary election in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Did the infection come from there? Were there safety breaches? Were those people tested and kept in self-isolation when they came back?”
