Chelsea's Callum Hudson-Odoi becomes first Premier League player to test positive for coronavirus

England's football club Chelsea FC has confirmed that its player Callum Hudson-Odoi has tested positive for coronavirus.

England's football club Chelsea FC has confirmed that its player Callum Hudson-Odoi has tested positive for coronavirus. The club has also said that the personnel who had recent close contact with the player in the men's team building will now self-isolate in line with UK's health guidelines.

Full men's team squad, coaching staff and a number of backroom staff are the ones who will remain in self-isolation. "It is expected that those who did not have close contact with Callum will return to work in the coming days. In the meantime, the men's team building, one of several separate buildings at our training ground, will remain closed. The rest of our training facility, Stamford Bridge and our other facilities are operating as normal," Chelsea FC said in an official statement.

The club revealed that Callum had displayed symptoms similar to a mild cold on Monday morning and had not been at the training ground since then as a precaution. Earlier in the day, Arsenal also confirmed that their head coach Mikel Arteta tested positive for coronavirus.

The coronavirus disease was first detected in Wuhan in China's Hubei province, in late December, and has since spread worldwide. More than 127,000 people have been infected with COVID-19, with over 4,700 having died and 68,000 recovered.

About 600 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the United Kingdom with eight fatalities, according to the Department of Health and Social Care. On Wednesday, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the COVID-19 outbreak could be characterised as a pandemic. (ANI)