UPDATED 2 p.m. — Caution and skepticism persist despite health authorities reporting success in keeping Covid-19 numbers down, as government officials have ignored safety precautions, a foreign delegation was allowed to skip quarantine, and the country’s testing regime remains opaque.
Health authorities said on Thursday that 628 people had been tested for Covid-19 after coming in contact with a visiting Hungarian official who tested positive for the virus after leaving the country this week.
Five tons of larvicide has been shipped to one province alone as authorities battle the spread of the chikungunya virus, a rapidly spreading, mosquito-borne disease that is suspected to have infected almost 6,000 people across 21 provinces in three months .
More than 80 people are being tested for Covid-19 for suspected contact with a 70-year-old Hungarian man who was confirmed to have the disease two weeks after arriving in Cambodia, the Health Ministry said.
Each year, hundreds of people in Cambodia are estimated to die of rabies, which is treatable but fatal once symptoms present. Animal welfare and health experts say vaccinating the nation’s dogs and controlling the dog meat trade could help prevent deaths.
Two Cambodians tested positive for Covid-19 this past weekend after they had been released from two separate quarantine centers, leaving health workers to trace more than 50 people with whom they were in contact, officials said.
Almost 1,500 people have tested positive for the mosquito-borne illness chikungunya fever in more than half of the nation’s provinces, the Health Ministry said, with officials instructing local authorities to get rid of mosquito breeding areas.
The Health Ministry has instructed Phnom Penh and provincial authorities to tighten security at Covid-19 quarantine centers after two men who have tested negative escaped from a designated site in Prey Veng province for several hours on Monday.
The Health Ministry on Thursday reported an outbreak of the mosquito-borne illness chikungunya fever after testing samples from more than 100 people in Poipet City, some of whom were found positive for the viral disease.
The government will allow 20 private schools to reopen next month in order to pilot Covid-19 school safety guidelines, according to a letter dated Tuesday from the Council of Ministers.
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