Iraq and Lebanon have detected more cases of the new coronavirus.
Iraq’s health ministry announced five new cases, four in Baghdad and one in Babel province, taking the total number of cases in the country to 13.
The patients were placed in quarantine, the ministry said in a statement.
On Wednesday Iraq banned public gatherings and barred entry by travelers from Kuwait and Bahrain because of the spread of the new coronavirus, prohibiting travel to or from a total of nine countries.
Iraq is concerned about the spread from neighboring Iran, one of the worst-hit countries outside China. Iraq has cultural and religious ties with Iran and annually receives millions of Iranian Shiite pilgrims.
An Iraqi family of four who returned from Iran tested positive for the coronavirus in Kirkuk province on Tuesday. They were the first Iraqis known to have caught the disease, a day after an Iranian student in Najaf became Iraq’s first confirmed case. He was later transferred to Iran.
It was not immediately clear if the five new cases announced on Saturday were people who had recently been in Iran.
In Lebanon, the health ministry said on Saturday that three new cases of coronavirus had been confirmed, state news agency NNA reported, bringing the total number of cases in the country to seven.
The ministry said the three new patients had been quarantined at a Beirut hospital and that their cases were the result of contact with those who were already infected in Lebanon.