Update: Although preliminary reports identified the person who tested positive for the virus as a man, officials later clarified that the person is a woman.
SAMUT PRAKAN — Medical officials say a Thai woman tested positive for the coronavirus at a hospital in Bangkok on Wednesday.
The woman, whose name was not released, tested positive at Ramathibodi Hospital and is currently treated there, according to Piyamit Sitra, dean of the medical faculty at Chakri Naruebodindra Medical Institute, an agency charged with treating coronavirus patients.
The alarm was raised by someone who posted on Facebook that a positive case was found at Ramathibodi.
Walairat Chaiyafu, director of the bureau of epidemiology at the Department of Disease Control, said the woman had completed his 14 day quarantine upon returning to Thailand. He was said to be healthy at the time he was freed from his mandatory quarantine.
If confirmed, it would be the first case of virus outside state quarantine in many weeks. Thailand said it did not detect any local transmission for about 80 days.
It is unclear how many people have come into contact with the patient.