A Chinese man with Covid-19 died in quarantine in Phnom Penh on Thursday, the Health Ministry said, but ruled his death “due to drug overdose” after an autopsy. In a Facebook post, the ministry further clarified that “there was no drug use” and the death was caused by serious withdrawal symptoms and not Covid-19.
Preah Sihanouk suspended transport in and out of the province, while authorities on Thursday extended school closures, and Prime Minister Hun Sen said the “February 20” Covid-19 outbreak could last past Khmer New Year next month.
Cambodia has rolled out two Covid-19 vaccines, each requiring two doses, with an about 80 percent efficacy rate in trials. From WHO approval to age eligibility and efficacy against new variants, here’s how the Sinopharm and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines compare.
Prime Minister Hun Sen received the country’s first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Thursday, the morning after calling for either a travel ban or widespread vaccinations in Preah Sihanouk province amid a rise in Covid-19 cases there.
Amid Cambodia’s worst Covid-19 outbreak to date, provinces outside the cluster’s urban epicenters of Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville are keeping a close watch on arrivals, hoping to prevent the disease’s spread across provincial borders.
Amid mass migrant worker arrivals and overcrowding quarantine centers at the Thai and Vietnamese borders, a senior National Police official said authorities over the past two weeks had arrested more than 100 brokers who facilitated illegal border crossings.
A doctor who died of a heart attack the night after receiving a Sinopharm Covid-19 shot and a migrant worker who died of kidney failure after returning from Thailand did not die because of the vaccine or coronavirus, authorities said this week.
The Health Ministry on Wednesday announced 34 new Covid-19 cases, all related to the “February 20” cluster, including two women who had been quarantined at a hotel in Svay Rieng province, the first confirmed cases found there.
Attention has turned to a young man who posted dozens of photos of himself in soldier’s uniform as the “mastermind” behind a planned kidnapping after military police shot dead four alleged would-be kidnappers in a shootout at a Phnom Penh gated housing complex on Monday.
More than 10,000 Phnom Penh residents are in Covid-19 quarantine, with 74 buildings locked down, following widespread contract tracing and testing into the “February 20” cluster, Phnom Penh governor Khuong Sreng said on Tuesday.
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