Special flights are being organised to pick up Thais stranded overseas after a student died of the coronavirus in Egypt, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said yesterday.
The premier said he had ordered the Foreign Ministry to urgently arrange the "rescue" flights.
Speaking after yesterday's cabinet meeting, Gen Prayut said repatriation flights would be provided on an ongoing basis to bring back tens of thousands of Thais now waiting to return home.
Gen Prayut said he was concerned for the welfare of the stranded Thais and had also asked the ministry to provide them with essential supplies.
The Thai embassy in Egypt was first alerted to a male university student being seriously ill there on July 24. Officials arranged with the Egyptian public health ministry to immediately take him to hospital.
The embassy said it learned four days later that the student had died due to lung inflammation caused by Covid-19. This was the first case of a Thai national dying in Egypt of Covid-19.
Cherdkiat Atthakor, a spokesman for the ministry, said a friend of the sick student contacted the embassy in early July and reported he had a cough.
It was not until three weeks later that the student was diagnosed as having a problem in his lungs.
He was sent to a hospital but his condition kept worsening. He died on Tuesday and was buried on the same day at an Islamic graveyard in Cairo.
More than 300 Thais who returned on a repatriation flight from Egypt yesterday were tested for Covid-19 by the embassy. Six of them failed to pass screening.
The total number of Covid-19 cases in Egypt on Tuesday was 92,482 and the death toll 4,652. It is known that 127 Thais in the country have contracted the virus, with 100 receiving treatment, 26 recovered and one died.
Three Thai monks at a temple in Las Vegas, Nevada, have reportedly been infected with the virus -- two were so sick they were taken to hospital and required the use of a respirator. The other had only mild symptoms and has been isolated at the temple.
In Taiwan, 29 people who had been in close contact with an infected Thai factory worker have been tested for Covid-19 -- 28 have been given the all-clear and the other result is still due.
Meanwhile, 54 Thais were arrested for allegedly sneaking back into the country in Narathiwat's Sungai Kolok district yesterday. They were fined and placed in state quarantine for 14 days.