The chief of the Disease Control Department on Thursday morning refuted a report that a Thai woman in Bangkok might have been infected locally with the coronavirus disease.
Director-general Suwannachai Wattanayingcharoenchai said that on Tuesday evening a hospital in Rat Burana district reported a 31-year-old woman as a new Covid-19 case. She had diabetes and had been admitted at the hospital on June 30 with swollen limbs.
On Monday the woman developed pneumonia and her doctor suspected Covid-19. Her nasal swab was sent to King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital. It tested positive for the disease. But her phlegm tested negative.
The Disease Control Department collected samples of her phlegm on Tuesday and Wednesday for re-testing. The Bamrasnaradura Infectious Disease Institute (BIDI) and the Medical Sciences Department did not find Covid-19 in the samples.
Dr Suwannachai quoted the woman's husband as saying that she had no record of possible Covid-19 infection.
At the factory where the couple worked, no-one had returned from abroad or was newly recruited, and all employees had their health screened daily before work.
King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital conducted another test of her nasal swab and also did not find the disease.
It was concluded that the patient was not a Covid-19 case. For confirmation, BIDI was making another test with a newly developed process and was awaiting a result, Dr Suwannachai said.
As a precaution, disease control officials were identifying and testing possible at-risk people and implementing disease control measures at the hospital in Rat Burana, he said.