PHNOM PENH, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Ministry of Health said on Sunday that one more foreigner tested positive for COVID-19, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the kingdom to eight.
The patient is a 35-year-old French man, who, along with his wife and 4-year-old son, flew from Paris to Phnom Penh with a transit flight in Singapore, the ministry said in a statement, adding that they arrived in Singapore Friday night before taking an MI 602 flight from Singapore to Phnom Penh on Saturday.
They arrived at their home in Phnom Penh on Saturday morning and Cambodian health authorities located them on Saturday evening after they got information from the Singapore health authorities that the French man tested positive for the coronavirus, it said.
The statement, citing the patient's remarks, said that his samples were first taken for a test at the Singapore airport due to his high body temperature, but Singaporean health officials let him continue his flight to Cambodia and told him to wait for the results later.
The man said he had properly worn a face mask while taking the flight from Singapore to Cambodia, and his body temperature was normal at that time, according to the statement.
Cambodia's Ministry of Health secretary of state and spokeswoman Or Vandine said the samples of the man were taken for a diagnosis at the Pasteur Institute of Cambodia Saturday night.
"The results from the Pasteur Institute of Cambodia, released at 14:30 in the afternoon on March 15, 2020, showed that the 35-year-old French man was positive for COVID-19 virus," she said.
Currently, the patient is put in an isolation room at the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital for treatment, she said, adding that the samples of the man's wife and son were also taken for tests, but the results were unavailable yet.
To date, Cambodia has recorded a total of eight COVID-19 patients, including a Chinese man, a Cambodian man, three British nationals, a Canadian man, a Belgian man and a French man.
In a bid to curb the spread of the virus, Cambodia has decided to ban entry of travelers from Italy, Germany, Spain, France and the United States for 30 days starting from March 17, and from Iran, starting from March 18.
The Southeast Asian country has also allowed all public and private school students in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap City to take an early vacation from Saturday.
