400 illegal migrants test positive for Covid-19- UPDATE

Earlier today, Thailand authorities announced that almost 300 allegedly illegal migrants tested positive for Covid-19, and now, that number has raised to almost 400. The migrants are being housed in Bangkok’s Bang Khen district awaiting to be transferred to a field hospital, with authorities saying the situation is “under control.”

Sompong Chingduang, commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, said on Tuesday that 297 migrants tested positive for the virus, but then that number was raised to 393. 370 men and 23 women had tested positive for the virus in the Immigration Bureau’s detention facility, after being placed in crowded conditions. The facility currently has 490 people detained, in which the number of cases may rise as more people are tested.

Sompong says the infected people were isolated with some being treated at a field hospital in the Royal Thai Police Sports Club in Bangkok.

“The Immigration Bureau deployed police to guard the field hospital around the clock and disease-control measures of the Public Health Ministry are strictly implemented to prevent a spread.”

Now, the bureau’s detention facilities in Bangkok have stopped accepting new detainees, and instead, sending them to a facility in Nonthaburi province. Those who did not test positive for the virus are either being repatriated or sent to the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security.

Sophon Iamsirithaworn, deputy director-general of the Department of Disease Control, says most of those who tested positive were asymptomatic or only displayed minor symptoms.

According to the Department of Disease Control, the Covid-19 virus reared its ugly head at the detention facility in Bang Khen on March 11, with 9 people testing positive. Then, on March 13, 52 more tested positive. The original group that infected the facility were transferred from a facility in the Sungai Kolok district of Narathiwat province in the deep south of Thailand.

40 of the 52 who tested positive on March 13 were reportedly in close contact with the original group from Sungai Kolok. On March 15 and 16 other detainees who were in close contact with the original group began testing positive.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post