Number of Covid-19 cases rises to 5 in Myanmar

Staff clean the Shwedagon pagoda compound amid concerns of the spread of the Covid-19 novel coronavirus in Yangon on March 26, 2020. - AFP

YANGON (Xinhua): Two more imported cases of Covid-19 have been reported in Myanmar early Friday (March 27), bringing the total of infection cases of this disease in the country to five, said a release from the Health and Sports Ministry.

The newly confirmed cases include a Myanmar-born US citizen aged 33 who was living in Mandalay region. He arrived from the United States on March 19.

Another patient is a 69-year-old Myanmar national who arrived in Yangon on March 14 after his one-month stay in Australia for health treatment and a four-day stay in Singapore.

The samples will be sent to the World Health Organization's reference laboratory for confirmation, the ministry's release said.

Contact tracing of those patients is underway and people who were in close contact with the patients are urged to report to the nearby health care stations, the release added.

All five cases are recent arrivals from abroad and no local case is reported so far in Myanmar. - Xinhua