Melbourne: A senior Australian minister has tested positive for the deadly coronavirus and was placed under quarantine in a Brisbane hospital on Friday, days after his return from America where he met Ivanka Trump and US Attorney General William Barr.
Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who sits on the national security committee, said on Friday he was feeling fine after waking up with fever and sore throat.
“I immediately contacted the Queensland Department of Health and was subsequently tested for COVID-19,” he said in a statement.
“I was advised by Queensland Health this afternoon that the test had returned positive. It is the policy of Queensland Health that anyone who tests positive is to be admitted into hospital and I have complied with their advice. I feel fine and will provide an update in due course,” he said in a statement.
A total of 196 coronavirus cases have now been confirmed across Australia while three people have died due to the disease in the country. The health officials warn that millions more are likely to contract the virus within the next six months.
US actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson are in Queensland after being tested positive for the virus.
Minister Dutton travelled to the US on March 5 for a meeting with security ministers of the FiveEyes intelligence alliance – Australia, the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.
Dutton met with United States Attorney-General William Barr and US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka while in Washington DC last week, according to the reports in Australian media.
According to a photo posted by the Australian embassy in Washington, Dutton can be seen standing close to Ivanka.
He returned to Australia at the weekend. On Tuesday, he attended a meeting of federal Cabinet in Sydney and travelled in a commercial plane from Brisbane to Sydney.
Dutton is the latest political figures to have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in quarantine for two weeks after his wife tested positive for the virus.
British Health Minister and Conservative MP Nadine Dorries has also been diagnosed with coronavirus.
The virus has claimed 4,925 lives and infected 131,500 people across 116 countries and territories.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday characterised the COVID-19 outbreak as a “pandemic” and expressed deep concern over its “alarming levels” of “spread, severity, as well as inaction”.
