ROME, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- A series of new clusters of COVID-19 cases linked to holidaymakers returning from abroad raised concerns in Italy on Monday, while fresh statistics confirmed a stable trend in daily new infections.

The clusters were detected in several regions across the country lately, and all of them appeared to have been swiftly circumscribed by local health authorities so far.

The latest concerned a group of 10 Italian students, who recently returned to the southern Apulia region after traveling to Greece to celebrate the end of their final school exams.

Five of them tested positive to the coronavirus on Monday, according to Apulia regional and municipal authorities.

"The whole group (of 10) was put under quarantine, as well as their relatives, and the people which they have eventually entered into contact with," Antonio Lorenzo Donno, mayor of the town of Muro where some of the youths live, said on Facebook.

A sixth person in the same region also tested positive after spending holidays in Malta, according to regional authorities.

The central Lazio (surrounding Rome) registered 38 new infections over the last 24 hours, and nine of them related to people returning from abroad: Spain (2 cases), Malta (2), Ukraine (2), Pakistan (2), and Romania (1), according to regional health councillor Alessio D'Amato.

"We are surrounded by countries with a higher COVID-19 incidence rate: let us follow preventive measures, or we risk finding ourselves in the same situation soon," D'Amato warned in a statement.

Two other clusters linked to holidaymakers had sparked fears at national level recently. The first was related to seven teenagers -- and one mother of them -- who tested positive after spending their vacation in the Greek island of Corfu.

The second concerned 24 students who returned from Croatia to the northern Veneto region in early August, and were put in quarantine after at least two of them developed the infection.

Since last week, similar cases have been reported in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Marche, Umbria, Emilia Romagna, and Piedmont regions as well.

Acknowledging a decrease in the average age among new infection cases recently, Deputy Health Minister Pierpaolo Sileri urged young people to make use of the Immuni contact tracing app launched by the authorities in late April.

"We must prevent the virus from being imported and from entering our homes, which are the place where the virus has been mainly transmitted at the beginning of the pandemic," Sileri told private La7 TV broadcaster on Monday.

In a separate comment on Sunday, however, Sileri specified the recent clusters should not lead people to think the situation was "running out of control."

"It is not the case: there is no recrudescence at national level, but several well-contained hotbeds," he stressed.

Meanwhile, the daily bulletin issued by the Health Ministry on Monday showed 259 new COVID-19 cases overall across the country over the last 24 hours -- compared to an increase of 463 reported on Sunday.

Active infections were 13,368, with an increase by 105 cases.

Four people died over the past 24 hours, which brought the country's death toll to 35,209 since the pandemic began in late February. Some 150 new recoveries were also registered, pushing the total of people cured to 202,248.

The total number of COVID-19 cases assessed was 250,825, considering active infections, recoveries, and fatalities, the Health Ministry stated.

Several regional governors, including those of the Lazio, Campania, and Veneto regions were now urging central authorities to speed up validation procedures on technologies for rapid tests, in order to have them available for checking on those returning from abroad.

The scientific-technical committee counseling the Italian cabinet in the COVID-19 emergency is currently examining such technologies, Ansa news agency reported. Enditem

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