Thailand’s daily new COVID-19 infections rose from 3 yesterday to 18 today. They are all illegal immigrants being held at a detention centre in Sadao district of the southern province of Songkhla. No new fatalities have been reported.

Accumulated infections in the country are now 2,987, while 2,740 people have recovered, 193 others remain at hospital and 54 people have died.

CCSA spokesman Dr. Taweesin Visanuyothin said today that 17 of the new cases are female, aged between 13 and 22 and the other is a ten-year old boy.

To date, 34 provinces in Thailand have reported no new cases for the past 28 days.

He said that, so far, 60 illegal immigrants at the Sadao detention centre have tested positive for COVID-19 since April 25^th, including the 18 new cases.

Referring to the 40 cases in Yala province, which a laboratory in the province reported as positive for coronavirus, Dr. Taweesin said that the second set of tests, this time conducted by the lab at the medical science centre in Songkhla, came back negative for all 40 cases.

Due to the conflicting results, he said that a meeting of senior health officials, chaired by Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, opted for a third round of tests, with new specimens to be taken from the 40 people in question, which will be sent to the Department of Disease Control for analysis, to put an end to the matter.

Dr. Taweesin assured that there will not be a cover up of the new results, adding that it is preferable that new cases be found, rather than missed because no tests were undertaken.

Clarifying the situation in Yala province, he said that provincial health officials conducted an Active Case Testing (ACT) campaign from April 18^th to 24^th on 3,277 people returning from Malaysia, Indonesia and from other provinces, as well as those involved in religious activities, adding that only 20 tested positive.

For the 20 positive cases, contacts were located and six more were found to be infected. Then, 311 other contacts in Yaha district were tested, resulting to another cluster of 40 cases, prompting Yala provincial health officials to demand further tests, by the medical science centre in Songkhla province, for confirmation of the initial findings.

Dr. Taweesin said that, previously, all swab samples in Yala were sent to the lab in Songkhla province for analysis, and it was only about two weeks ago that tests have been conducted in Yala following the opening of a laboratory there.

More than 220,000 people have been tested, mostly as part of ACT campaigns, and this will continue, said Dr. Taweesin.