Cambodia to deport recovered Nigerian monkeypox patient: immigration official

Cambodia will deport the recovered monkeypox patient, Osmond Chihazirim Nzerem, to his birth country Nigeria and ban him from re-entering the kingdom for three years, an immigration department official said on Sunday. The 27-year-old Nigerian man, who previously fled from neighboring Thailand despite a positive test result for monkeypox, was arrested by Cambodian authorities in the capital Phnom Penh on July 23 and sent to the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital for treatment.

The man recovered and was discharged from the hospital on Saturday. "The General Department of Immigration has decided to deport the Nigerian man and prohibit him from re-entering Cambodia for three years," General Department of Immigration's deputy director-general and spokesman Keo Vanthan told Xinhua.

The Nigerian man is the first and only imported monkeypox case in the Southeast Asian country. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared on July 23 the current multi-country monkeypox outbreak outside of the traditional endemic areas in Africa as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).

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