With the first known presumptive case of COVID-19 confirmed in the province, Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Health Officer met with reporters Thursday morning.

Dr. Saqib Shahab said the patient in Saskatoon is in their 60s and recently travelled to Egypt.

Despite the positive case, Shahab said the risk to the public still remains low.

“Our information today suggests that like many travellers they were very aware of the need to self-monitor and self-isolate,” Shahab said.

According to Shahab, the patient travelled to Egypt on March 6 and was tested on March 9. He received the test results late Wednesday evening, discussed it with colleagues late into the night to confirm the positive test and notified the patient on Thursday morning.

So far there have been 285 tests done in Saskatchewan with 263 negative results and 22 pending results.

“We’ve been saying for some time now that, with several cases in Canada reported due to travel, we were expecting to see a case at some point,” Shahab said.

“We will expect to see more cases in the future, primarily linked to travel, but we remain vigilant to also detect cases which may not have travelled.”

Up-to-date information on COVID-19 in Saskatchewan can be found here.