A new large-scale outbreak of coronavirus infection has occurred in Thailand – 548 cases were registered per day, their source is the fish market area. This was stated by the Director General of the Department of Disease Control Ministry of Health of Thailand Ophat Kanphavinphong, reports RIA Novosti .
There have been no coronavirus outbreaks in the country for six months, but in total, according to data of the Johns Hopkinas University project on December 19, only 4331 cases and 60 deaths have been registered in Thailand since the beginning of the pandemic.
“After the registration of the first patient, a 67-year-old woman, the owner of a shrimp farm and a market place in Samut Sakhon province in the central shrimp market area on December 17, the Ministry and local health authorities began an epidemiological investigation and mass testing for coronavirus of persons who were in direct contact with the patient, as well as visitors and market workers, “a representative of the Ministry of Health told reporters.
He noted that 1,192 migrants from Myanmar worked on the market, and half of them – 516 – were infected with COVID-19. Most of the symptoms either do not appear at all, or appear in a mild form, there are no serious patients.
Gangphavinphong said the authorities are ready to suppress the outbreak. However, doctors are confident that the number of infected will grow as the testing of workers who compactly live in the provinces – there live “mostly young people of working age with good health”.
An isolation regime has been declared throughout Samut Sakhon province, public facilities have been closed, and restrictions on entry and exit from the province have been imposed.
Over the past six months, only 22 cases of infection have been registered in Thailand, not counting imported cases, RIA Novosti notes. In Samut Sakhon province, from the start of the pandemic to the outbreak in December, 18 people fell ill, none of them died.