BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand tried to allay fears of a momentary wave of coronavirus infections on Thursday, after a woman tested positive after being quarantined about two months ago on her way back from abroad.
Thailand spent 87 days without national transmission, however, news that a woman tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday in Bangkok, which returned on 24 June, has raised fears of a new outbreak in a country that has so far saved the point of contagion elsewhere. .
Authorities said that the woman is unlikely to be contagious and may have caught the virus in the United Arab Emirates or in her home province of Loei, on the border with Laos.
“Possibly it would have swelled in the last 3 months, in Dubai or Loei, but not in Bangkok,” Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the coVID-19 government organization, said in a briefing.
She said the 35-year-old had tested negative twice since Tuesday and that 24 others in contact with her in Loei and Bangkok would also be tested.
“There’s nothing to worry about. She wears a mask all the time and is no longer sick,” Taweesin added.
Thailand is returning to generally after recording only 58 COVID-19 deaths and 3,389 instances since January, less than 2% of the 178,000 instances in the Philippines, the highest overall in Southeast Asia.
Some Asian countries that have allegedly had outbreaks in the previous period have experienced a resurgence, adding Vietnam, where cases have more than doubled since the virus resurfaced in July after 3 months without network infections.
Fears of a return to the virus shook Thai markets, with stocks falling to 1.2% on Thursday and baht with a 0.6% drop, fearing it would hamper efforts to revive an economy for a record annual contraction.
Surasak Leelaudomlipi, director of Bangkok’s Ramathibodi Hospital, said that only lines of the virus had been discovered in women and that experts were “pretty sure” that it was not contagious.
“To reassure society, we discovered the genetics of the virus, not a virus,” Surasak said.
Written through Martin Petty; Editing via Nick Macfie
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