BANGKOK: Health authorities in Thailand have said they have confirmed the country’s first cases of the Indian COVID-19 variant in a Thai woman and her 4-year-old son arriving from Pakistan.
Apisamai Srirangson, the assistant spokeswoman for the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, said on Monday the woman and her three sons, aged four, six and eight, arrived in Thailand from Pakistan via Dubai on April 24.
“All were in a state-arranged quarantine facility after the arrival and the first tests found the mother and her youngest son were positive, while the other children were not infected,” he added.
The finding comes as Thailand battles a new wave of the coronavirus that began at the beginning of April, prompting authorities to consider widening the ban on international arrivals to other countries besides India.
Thailand banned travellers from India, other than Thai citizens, starting on May 1 in response to a massive outbreak of Covid-19 cases in the South Asian nation that began in early April.
Thailand on Monday announced 1,630 new cases, bringing its confirmed total to 85,005 since the pandemic began. There were 22 new deaths, for a total of 421.
