BANGKOK (Xinhua): Thailand's Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) said on Wednesday that the Ministry of Public Health's Disease Control Department (DCD) has upgraded its Covid-19 testing facility at Suvarnabhumi international airport, now capable of producing test results within 70 minutes.
"When the facility was set up on July 1st at the airport's Point of Care RT-PCR laboratory, it took an estimated 90 minutes to determine if the arriving passenger tested positive or negative for Covid-19," said CCSA spokesman Dr Taweesin Visanuyothin.
"Now, it takes only 70 minutes for the results to come out; however with the increasing arrivals of Thai returnees and future arrivals of foreign businessmen, DCD had to upgrade the lab's Covid-19 RT-PCR test," he said
"Now the airport lab is capable of testing 170 arriving passengers per day," said Suthirawat Suwanawat, general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport.
However, Suthirawat said that the cost of the test will not be picked up by the airport or the Thai government.
The cost of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test will be paid by the inbound traveller, at 3,000 baht (US$96) per person, he said.
Taweesin said that passengers who test negative won't need to go through the 14-day mandatory quarantine, but will not be allowed to take public transport or visit public places.
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