On 30 July 2016, the Ministry of Public Health, Thailand, announced a laboratory confirmed case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) in an 18-year-old Kuwaiti man who arrived in Thailand on 25 July with his family.
The patient developed symptoms on 25 July during a flight from Kuwait to Bangkok. On 26 July he sought medical treatment at a hospital in Bangkok. Although there was no history of direct contact with camels or with a suspected human case of MERS-CoV infection, he had a history of travel in the Middle East in the previous 14 days. On 28 July, he tested positive for MERS-CoV in three separate laboratories.
He was then referred and admitted to an isolation ward in the national referral hospital for infectious diseases.
The patient’s condition rapidly improved and two subsequent laboratory tests on 31 July and 1 August returned negative results for MERS-CoV from four reference laboratories. Specimens collected from his family contacts were also negative. Contact tracing showed no evidence of infection in identified contacts.
The patient was discharged from hospital and left Thailand with his family on 4 August.
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