A soccer player is among the three confirmed cases of COVID-19 detected out of a total of 1,247 laboratory diagnoses, according to the data announced on Friday by the Epidemiological Monitoring Unit of the Ministry of Health.

According to the latest data, the total number of positive cases rose to 1,013.

A press release issued by the Ministry of Health says that two out of the three cases announced on Friday were detected after analyzing a total of 219 samples taken from private initiative. One of two persons tested positive for COVID-19 has travelled recently.

In particular, one is a Polish national and a permanent resident of Cyprus, who showed symptoms and was subjected to an examination and the other one is a Serbian soccer player announced by APOEL, who came to Cyprus from Serbia on 7 July.

The soccer player underwent the examination in the context of a regular check carried out by the team on its players. This particular person had been diagnosed with the virus in Serbia in June and was tested negative three times over a 14 days period during which we he was quarantined, before arriving to Cyprus.

The third case was detected out of 87 samples taken in the context of the process of tracing the contacts of already confirmed cases. This person is a contact of the case that was announced on 7 July

No one tested positive for COVID-19 out of 358 laboratory diagnoses conducted on passengers and repatriated persons, 432 tests of samples taken in the context of testing 10,000 employees who returned to work under phase two and three of the lifting of the restrictive measures, 109 tests completed by the Microbiological Labs of the General Hospitals and 42 tests done after referrals from personal doctors and special groups screening through the public health centres.