BANGKOK – Thai health authorities reported Monday that the country’s first cases of the coronavirus variant first detected in India have been confirmed. It is about a Thai woman and her four-year-old son who have been in quarantine since their arrival from Pakistan.
The finding comes as Thailand struggles with a new wave of coronavirus infections that began in early April, which originated in exclusive entertainment centers in Bangkok and spread to several crowded poor communities. Many of the recent cases involve the variant of the coronavirus first detected in Britain, which is more contagious than the original one that spread worldwide last year.
Thailand has banned travelers from India, other than Thai citizens, from entering the country as of May 1 in response to a massive outbreak of COVID-19 cases in the South Asian country that began early April. India has reported more than 22.6 million infected people, only below the United States, and more than 246,000 deaths related to the virus. Experts believe that both official figures are much lower than the real ones.
On Monday, Thai authorities extended the ban on entry of foreigners arriving from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal in an attempt to curb the spread of the variant first found in India, Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanee said. Sangrat.