A Thai woman in Bangkok has been found to be infected with the monkeypox virus. It’s the second confirmed case reported within the city and the fourth overall case within Thailand.
Dr. Opas Karnkawinpong, the director-general of the Disease Control Department, said on Friday that the 22-year-old woman has a history of frequenting entertainment venues in Bangkok and came into contact with male foreigners.
The unidentified woman was reported to have developed a fever last Friday but continued going out to such venues. On Saturday, she began to have blisters on her limbs before they spread all over her body.
She was admitted to a hospital in Samut Prakan province on Wednesday, where lab tests conducted by the medical sciences department at the Faculty of Medicine in Chulalongkorn University confirmed a day later that she had contracted the virus.
She is currently receiving treatment at the Bamrasnaradura Infectious Diseases Institute in Nonthaburi province.
The case marks the first time a woman in the country is known to have contracted the monkeypox virus. Dr. Opas’ had previously stated that “98% of all cases are men who have sex with men.”
On Wednesday, Dr. Opas said a German tourist in Phuket was the third patient confirmed to have the virus following a 47-year-old Thai man in Bangkok and a 27-year-old Nigerian man in Phuket.
Phuket health officials initially thought the German man to be homosexual before Dr. Kusak Kukiattikoon of the Phuket Provincial Health Office confirmed that one of the people that the man had come into contact with was his girlfriend, who tested negative for the virus.
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