NAKHON PHANOM: Community testing for Covid-19 was continuing at locked down villages on Thursday after a local food vendor was found to have been infected by visitors from Bangkok over the New Year.
Disease control workers have taken samples for testing from more than 800 people in That Phanom district who had contact with the 51-year-old food vendor, who lives in Ban Nong Kud Khaen village in tambon Phra Klang Thung.
Taweesilp Visanuyothin, spokesman for the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, said on Thursday that two men, aged 53 and 54, living in Nong Chok district of Bangkok paid a New Year visit to the vendor from Dec 28 to Jan 3. The three were friends.
The two men had caught Covid-19 from two women, aged 45 and 51, in Bangkok's Phra Khanong district. Those women had earlier been infected by people who had visited a gambling den in Rayong province, he said.
About 10 people in Nakhon Phanom had been at high risk of infection by the vendor, but they had still tested negative. The vendor had been in contact with many people before her infection was detected, so nearly 1,000 other people were at low risk, Dr Taweesilp said.
Hundreds of them had already tested negative. To date, the vendor was the only case in Nakhon Phanom, he said.
Nakhon Phanom governor Kraisorn Kongchalad earlier ordered Covid-19 tests on more than 800 people.
Five people in close contact with the vendor have already tested negative. The 829 other people were waiting for their test results, he said.
The village and its vicinity has been locked down and active case finding was continuing.
Places visited by infected people were being disinfected daily, including a wet market.
A branch of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives in That Phanom district and two local schools were also closed for disinfection, the governor said.
