Cambodia: Another US diplomat tests Covid-19 positive; tourism down by 65%


Local farmers take off rice seedlings at a rice paddy field during the rainy season in Tonle Om village on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. - AP
PHNOM PENH, Aug 4 (Xinhua): Cambodia confirmed on Tuesday that one more US diplomat tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of infected US diplomats in the country to four.

A statement from the Health Ministry described the latest U.S. patient as a senior diplomat at the US embassy to Cambodia, who had traveled from the United States to Cambodia recently via a connecting flight in South Korea.

"According to a report provided by the US embassy to Cambodia, on the 15th day of the man's quarantine, his samples were tested for the Covid-19 for the third time and the result released on Monday showed that he turned out to be positive for the virus," it said.

"The patient has been placed in an isolation ward at the US embassy in Phnom Penh, receiving treatment from the US doctors to the embassy," it added.

The man is the fourth US diplomat tested positive for the virus in Cambodia in recent weeks, and two of them have recovered, the statement said.

The Southeast Asian country has recorded a total of 241 confirmed Covid-19 cases to date, with 200 patients cured and 41 remained in hospital.

In another development, the Ministry of Tourism announced that Cambodia attracted 1.18 million international visitors during the first half of 2020, down 64.6 per cent from 3.33 million over the same period last year.

China, Vietnam and Thailand were the biggest sources of foreign travellers to the kingdom during the January-June period this year, the report said.

It added that some 275,673 Chinese, 179,698 Vietnamese, and 161,084 Thais visited the country during the first six months of this year, down 79 per cent, 55 per cent, and 7.6 per cent, respectively compared to the same period last year.

In June alone, Ccambodia received only 12,284 foreign visitors, a drop of 97 per cent from 450,013 over the same month last year, the report said.

The huge slump in the number of international arrivals to Cambodia was due to the Covid-19 pandemic that forced the country to impose entry restrictions for all foreign travelers since March.

Tourism Minister Thong Khon has predicted that Cambodia could lose about US$3 billion in tourism revenue in 2020 due to the remarkable drop in the number of international visitors.

"For 2020, due to the virus crisis, the number of foreign tourists to Cambodia can drop by 70 per cent," he said.

Tourism is one of the four sectors supporting cambodia's economy as the country attracted 6.6 million international visitors in 2019, earning a total revenue of US$4.9 billion. - Xinhua

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