90 peacekeepers are infected with the novel coronavirus, Andrea Teneti, a spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), said in a statement on Sunday.
88 of them belonged to the same detachment, but their nationalities were not specified. The infected individuals were transferred to a UNIFIL facility designed to treat coronavirus patients.
"We have undertaken robust contact tracing, and applied a thorough regime of testing and isolation" to prevent a larger outbreak, Teneti said.
The spokesperson further added that UNIFIL's mission remains uninterrupted at this stage.
UNIFIL was established in 1978 to interpose between Israel and Lebanon, which remain to this day technically at war with each other.
Peacekeepers from around 45 countries make up the interim force.
Recently, UNIFIL's mandate was extended by a year but the overall number of peacekeepers was reduced from 15,000 to 13,000.
Despite Israeli and American hopes to significantly expand the peacekeepers' mandate to better contain Hezbollah's efforts at militarizing the entire Southern Lebanon, the recent extension does not significantly alter the situation.