Visitor to Thailand has new Coronavirus strain

A Chinese visitor to Thailand has been confirmed to be infected with a new strain of coronavirus that has been linked to a pneumonia outbreak in central China, health officials said Monday.

The U.N.'s World Health Organization said Thai officials have reported that a traveller from the Chinese city of Wuhan has been hospitalized in Thailand with the virus.

The outbreak of the virus has been traced to Wuhan, where it affected several dozen people who had been to a major meat and seafood market.

Thai Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said it appears to be the first confirmed case of the virus found outside China, the Bangkok Post newspaper and other Thai media reported.

He identified the infected tourist as a 61-year-old woman whose symptoms were detected on arrival at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport last Wednesday.

Her coronavirus was confirmed Sunday by a laboratory test, Anutin said.

She has been treated at an isolation ward at a state health facility outside of Bangkok, and no longer has any fever or respiratory symptoms, he said.

Eight other people with possible symptoms have also been held at the facility, he said, but none has been confirmed to have the virus.