Myanmar & COVID-19 Myanmar Sees First COVID-19 Recovery

A Myanmar army staffer prepares to sanitize the International Airport in Naypyitaw to curb the spread of the coronavirus. / Thiha Lwin / The Irrawaddy

YANGON/NAYPYITAW—A COVID-19 patient was discharged from the hospital in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw on Wednesday after two follow-up lab tests for the disease came back negative, according to the Ministry of Health and Sports (MOHS).

Although she has now recovered from COVID-19, the 58-year old Swiss woman, who works for the United Nations, must stay in quarantine at a hotel for two weeks, according to Dr. Pa Pa, spokesperson for the hospital in Naypyitaw.

The government has prepared a number of hotels in Naypyitaw to serve as quarantine centers.

Naypyitaw Public Health Department head Dr. Myat Wunna Soe told The Irrawaddy that the woman must stay in her hotel room during the two-week quarantine period and will need to undergo a medical checkup again after the quarantine is over.

MOHS said the woman was in close contact with her father, who also tested positive for COVID-19, for a couple of hours back in Switzerland before she returned to Myanmar on March 18.

The woman was admitted to a hospital on March 26 after showing COVID-19 symptoms, including a fever, cough and diarrhea, and tested positive for the disease on March 28.

A UN statement said she had been in self-quarantine as a precaution since her arrival to Naypyitaw.

A driver and domestic worker employed by the woman were also quarantined and tested for COVID-19, though both tested negative.

A 33-year-old COVID-19 patient from Mandalay also tested negative for the disease recently. According to an MOHS statement on Wednesday, he is still at Kandawnadi Hospital in Mandalay.

According to preliminary data from the World Health Organization, the median time from onset to clinical recovery is approximately 2 weeks for mild cases of COVID-19 and 3-6 weeks for patients with severe or critical cases of the disease.

As of Wednesday, Myanmar has reported a total of 22 COVID-19 cases including 3 deaths.