BANGKOK, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- Thai health authorities on Friday has confirmed a local COVID-19 case after a 57-year-old French woman tested positive days after she completed a quarantine on arriving in Thailand.
"The French woman and her family, who have a home in Thailand's resort island of Samui in Thailand's South, arrived in Bangkok from Paris on Sept. 30," said Dr. Sophon Iamsirithavorn, director of the Ministry of Public Health's General Infectious Diseases Division.
The family was quarantined in Bangkok's adjacent province of Samut Prakan for 14 days before returning to Samui Island on Oct. 15.
The French woman stayed in her house and wore a face mask whenever she went out in her car, Sophon said.
She developed a fever on Oct. 17 and decided to stay home before going to a private hospital for a COVID-19 test on Tuesday. However Sophon said that the result on Thursday was positive.
"So health authorities are not sure whether the French woman became infected while in Thailand," said Sophon.
In the meantime, health officials on Thailand's Samui Island are scrambling to trace people who were in close contact with the infected French woman.
According to Sophon, Tests have been conducted on 15 people deemed to be high-risk and they have been isolated till the results are known.
Cumulative infections in Thailand on Friday are 3,727, including 780 imported and 2,450 locally-transmitted cases. The death toll remains at 59. Enditem
