The Ministry of Public Health has announced that a player of the Buriram United Football Club was confirmed as a new case of the coronavirus disease 2019 after the health screenings of 1,115 players and relevant officials in League 1 and League 2 before the start of their season.
According to the ministry, the new case is an Uzbekistani footballer aged 29. The health screenings are a joint disease control effort between the ministry and the Football Association of Thailand. The rest 1,114 people tested negative for Covid-19.
Media reports identified the infected football player as Akbar Ismatullaev.
Forty-three people were in close contact with him. They comprised 22 football players, 16 staff members and five officials.
Prof Dr Yong Poovorawan, chief of the Center of Excellence in Clinical Virology at Chulalongkorn University, said he believed that the new case contracted the disease in his homeland and it was still unnecessary for Thailand to increase its quarantine from 14 days.
The patient was asymptomatic and was thus considered as having a low level of the disease, he said.
Korawee Prisananantakul, vice president of Thai League, said the matches of any Thai League team with an infected player would be postponed for the sake of disease control and all footballers would be retested for COVID-19. If fresh tests turn out negative, matches can resume next week and spectators can attend them in compliance with regulations, he said. (TNA)
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