Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
A 65-year-old British woman has been diagnosed with the coronavirus after contracting the disease on a flight from London to Vietnam before travelling to Cambodia on a cruise ship.
The unnamed woman who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Cambodia had reportedly contracted the disease from a Vietnamese national who was sitting next to her on their flight from London to Vietnam’s capital Hanoi last week.
Local media report she then travelled from Ho Chi Minh City in the Southeast region of Vietnam to the central Cambodian province of Kampong Cham on the Viking Cruise Journey cruise ship.
Cambodia’s Minister of Health Bun Geng called a press conference and said: “The woman contracted the novel coronavirus infection from a Vietnamese national who sat beside her as they travelled on the same flight and from England to Vietnam last week. The British woman then boarded the ship which left Vietnam on March 5 and arrived in Phnom Penh on 7th March.”
Heng said that the Cambodian authorities had been warned that five British tourists had had contact with a Vietnamese national suffering from COVID-19 and they had tried to test all five on Saturday.
He said tests were carried out on three of the five at the Khmer Soviet Friendship Hospital. with two women initially refusing to take the test.
The minister added: “But they agreed to do so when they reached Kampong Cham, and this is when we identified the 65-year-old British woman to be Covid-19 positive. Nevertheless, the infected lady is in good general health.”
She is reportedly being kept in quarantine in the Kampong Cham Provincial Referral Hospital.
The Viking Cruise Journey has been placed in quarantine on a river in the Kampong Cham province with all 34 crew members and 30 passengers on board.
Or Vandin, a spokesperson for Cambodia’s Ministry of Health, said they were working to identify those who had been in contact with the British woman, most urgently a translator.
The 65-year-old has become Cambodia’s third case of the virus.
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