Kuwait and Bahrain on Monday recorded their first new coronavirus cases, all involving people who had visited Iran, which has reported 43 cases of the disease, state media said, according to Reuters.
Kuwait detected the virus in three people among 700 who had been evacuated on Saturday from the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, state news agency KUNA said.
The health ministry identified them as a 53-year-old Kuwaiti man, a 61-year-old Saudi man and a 21-year-old whose nationality was unclear. It said the Kuwaiti and Saudi had been asymptomatic while the third person showed initial symptoms.
In neighbouring Bahrain, the health ministry said a Bahraini citizen who arrived from Iran had been diagnosed with the disease and that "all necessary measures have been taken with individuals in contact with the patient".