Of the 80 cases of coronavirus infections imported into Slovenia, 64 came from Croatia, health authorities in Slovenia reported on Wednesday, recommending that their citizens return home as soon as possible otherwise they will have to go into quarantine for 14 days.

In the past 24 hours, 37 new cases of the virus were registered in Slovenia, 10 more than on Tuesday.

Since the outbreak of the infection, a total of 2,493 people have been infected in that country and 139 have died.

There are currently 285 active COVID cases in Slovenia, 80 of whom are in the capital, Ljubljana.

According to the public health institute, in the past seven days, 80 cases were imported with 64 of these coming from Croatia.

A final decision on introducing quarantine measures for people returning from Croatia will be made by the government on Thursday and the deadline to return to avoid mandatory self-isolation will most likely be set for midnight Saturday or Sunday, Slovenia's media outlets have reported.

The government's spokesman Jelko Kacin on Tuesday evening suggested that Slovenians vacationing in Istria could possibly be exempted from the quarantine measures, since this Croatian region is still in the green zone according to Slovenia's criteria, unlike other Croatian counties.