Coronavirus: Gabon shuts schools, stops issuing tourist visas to citizens of hardest hit countries.

Gabon on Friday adopted measures to combat the new coronavirus, including the closure of schools for two weeks and a halt to the granting of tourist visas for areas affected by the pandemic.

On Thursday, the first case of coronavirus was reported, a 27-year-old Gabonese student returning from Bordeaux, France.

“In order to anticipate any epidemic in our country and to protect our populations,” the Gabonese government explained in a statement issued on Friday evening, all schools will be closed until 30 March, gatherings of more than 50 people are banned and bars and nightclubs are closed “until further notice”.

The granting of tourist visas is suspended “from the most infected areas, namely the European Union, China, South Korea and the United States,” the statement said.

Nearly 200 contaminations by the virus had been officially recorded on Friday in 14 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, according to their national authorities, with a first confirmed death in Sudan.

Africa is rather spared compared to the rest of the world, where the new coronavirus has caused more than 5,300 deaths, according to a report established by AFP from official sources.