Cu­ba con­firmed its first cas­es of the new coro­n­avirus on Wednes­day, while its tex­tile in­dus­try has been draft­ed to fab­ri­cate masks and the gov­ern­ment al­so urges cit­i­zens to make their own, amid a cash crunch and dwin­dling sup­plies world­wide.

Cu­ba’s state news broad­cast­er said four Ital­ian tourists who were stay­ing at a hos­tel in the south­ern town of Trinidad af­ter ar­riv­ing at Ha­vana air­port on Mon­day had pre­sent­ed res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms and were tak­en to a hos­pi­tal on Tues­day.

On Wednes­day, the hos­pi­tal con­firmed that three of the tourists had test­ed pos­i­tive for the coro­n­avirus, the broad­cast­er said. Au­thor­i­ties were track­ing down those who had come in­to con­tact with the three and was check­ing up on them.

Out­side of Asia, Italy has had the high­est num­ber of coro­n­avirus cas­es.

Over the past 10 days, Cu­ba has ramped up its cam­paign on how to ward off the in­fec­tion, through talks at work­place and com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings, and through state me­dia.