PHNOM PENH, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Twelve Cambodian migrant workers have recently tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to the kingdom from neighboring Thailand, the Ministry of Health (MoH) said in a statement on Friday.
The new confirmed COVID-19 cases are all reported in women aged between 24 and 39, who came back to Cambodia separately earlier this week via land borders, the statement said.
"The results of their samples' tests showed that the 12 persons above were positive for the COVID-19," MoH's secretary of state and spokeswoman Or Vandine said in the statement.
Currently, the patients are being treated at Battambang Provincial Referral Hospital and Pailin Provincial Referral Hospital in Northwest Cambodia, she added.
Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen has called on Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand not to return amid the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak unless necessary, and ordered the authorities along the borders to tighten security measures.
"I'd like to ask our migrant workers to continue staying there so that the Thai authorities can help examine and treat, rather than bringing the disease into our country," he said in an audio message released to the public on Thursday evening.
"All returnees must be quarantined for 14 days at the designated quarantine facilities along the borders and their samples must be taken for a lab test," he added.
Since January to date, the Southeast Asian nation has recorded a total of 378 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with zero deaths and 362 recoveries, the MoH said. Enditem