A view of a closed market, during a 14-day city-wide blockade, implemented due to a growing number of cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, April 17, 2021. REUTERS / Cindy Liu / Photo File
Cambodia began setting up thousands of hospital beds in two wedding halls on Sunday to cope with an influx of COVID-19 patients in a country that until recently had been largely infected.
Cambodia also reported a daily record of 618 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, its health ministry said, in an increase in infections following an outbreak first detected in late February.
The new numbers amounted to 6,389. Cambodia has until recently had one of the lowest numbers of infections in the world. It reported 43 deaths, all in the past two months.
“The Ministry of Health has decided to use the Sen Sok Premiere Center to prepare for the Covid-19 treatment center, which can accommodate more than 1,500 Covid-19 patients,” Cambodia’s national television station TVK said on Sunday. health.
Or Vandine, the secretary of state and spokeswoman for the health ministry, said she was busy in a meeting and did not immediately comment on a Reuters question. Health Minister Mam Bunheng could not be reached for comment.
Images from the local media showed Mam Bunheng visiting one of the wedding venues, Vimean Piphob Thmey Sensok, while police set up hospital beds. A Reuters photographer was denied entry and told to return next week.
Earlier this week, the government also turned another Koh Pich Convention & Exhibition Center wedding venue into a field hospital that houses about 1,800 beds.
Phnom Penh and a satellite district of the capital were closed on Thursday in an attempt to stop the spread of infections.
During the blockade, most people are forbidden to leave home for two weeks, unless they go to work, buy food or for medical treatment.
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