A 71-year-old Omani man has tested positive for deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in Thailand, becoming the second confirmed case in the country as authorities launched an urgent search to trace several others who had contact with the patient, health officials said today.
Public Health Minister Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn said the patient had been quarantined at an infectious diseases centre on the outskirts of Bangkok and wasin stable condition on respiratory machine.
The Diseases Control Department is now looking for more than 250 people the patient had direct contact with. Of them, 37 are considered at "high risk" of contracting the deadly virus, the Health Ministry said, without giving more details.
The 37 persons, include 13 Thais, who are medical staffs, hotel staffs and a taxi driver.
They will be monitored for possible infection for at least 14 days, the ministry said.
Thailand's first MERS case was a 75-year-old man, also from Oman, who was hospitalized last June. He, however, was released weeks later after being declared free of the virus, considered deadlier but less infectious cousin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed hundreds of people when it appeared in Asia in 2003.
In both cases, the men had first fallen ill in Oman and came to Thailand to seek diagnosis and medical treatment.
People from the Middle East frequently come to Thailand for medical care.
The World Health Organisation said early this month that it had been notified of 1,626 confirmed MERS cases, including at least 586 related deaths, since the disease first appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012.
South Korea was hit hard by an outbreak last year which killed 36 people and triggered panic across Asia's fourth-largest economy.
The typical symptoms of the virus include fever, cough and shortness of breath, according to WHO.
