SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Mainland China registered 26 new cases of COVID-19 on April 2, compared with nine the previous day, the country’s national health authority said on Saturday, as officials in the southwest of the country associated a local outbreak with Myanmar. .
The National Health Commission said seven of the new cases were local infections in Yunnan province, where a COVID-19 cluster emerged in the city of Ruili, on the border with Myanmar.
Genetic analysis of the cases in Ruili suggests that they originated from viruses imported from Myanmar and are unrelated to other recent outbreaks located in China, state media reported, citing a news conference.
Ruili is a major transit point for Yunnan province, which has struggled to monitor its rugged 4,000 km (2,500 mile) border with Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam for illegal immigration amid a wave of unauthorized crossings last year by people seeking refuge from the pandemic.
The city imposed domestic quarantine, exit restrictions and mass testing. On Saturday, he had identified 3,650 close contacts and secondary case contacts, state media reported.
The other 19 new infections in mainland China have been imported, the National Health Commission said.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, rose from 20 to 24.
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in mainland China now stand at 90,252, with the death toll unchanged at 4,636.
Reporting by Andrew Galbraith; William Mallard edition