Italy's foreign minister Luigi Di Maio thanked an Italian medical team that returned home on Thursday from Albania, where it helped battle the country's COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
"Heartfelt thanks for the first-rate job done by our team of health workers, which returned today to Italy after supporting hospitals in Albania," Di Maio tweeted.
The Italian doctors "helped the Albanian population at a very difficult time," the tweet said.
Albania has recorded nearly 7,000 cases of the COVID-19 virus and at least 213 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Since it was first reported in China late last year, COVID-19 has infected close to 20.7 million people and killed nearly 750,800.
Italy was Europe's epicentre of the respiratory disease earlier this year and is the country with the sixth highest number of deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
