PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti (CMC)— Students, teachers as well as administrative staff at the Université Henri Christophe de Limonade have been sent home after a professor who recently returned from a visit to the United States exhibited symptoms associated with COVID-19.

The university’s management board asked the teachers, administrative staff and students to stay at home until Sunday as they await the results of the tests conducted on the lecturer.

Secretary of State for Communication Eddy Jackson Alexis confirmed that the professor had been placed in quarantine because he has symptoms which resemble those of COVID-19. He said the professor had just returned from a visit to the US.

The health directorate of the department said the samples had been sent to the national laboratory and that the results should be available in approximately 24 hours.

It said it should be noted that the professor has been in contact with other people, including students, since his return from the US.

Health authorities said that as of Wednesday, 47 people had been placed under quarantine at home, but that there has been no positive case of the virus which was first detected in China last December and blamed for more than 8,000 deaths worldwide.