Abstract
Introduction
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected over 200 countries to date. In Cambodia, the first case was reported in January 2020 from a Chinese traveler. The hard-hit of community transmissions struck on February 20, 2021, and has yet to be fully contained. This paper aimed to describe the Covid-19 epidemiology linked to this community transmission event, and to discuss the effect of government’s lockdown.
Methods
Available public data on Covid-19 cases reported daily by the Ministry of Health were collected between February 20 to March 26, 2021. Then, the data were recorded in Excel included both demographic and epidemiological variables. Also, from February 20 to April 30, 2021, the numbers of Covid-19 cases aggregated by province were tabulated in Excel, and we constructed the daily notification using ArcGIS software 10.8 to visually map cases by province. Finally, preventive measures and government’s lockdown were chronologically recorded.
Results
From February 20 to March 26, 2021, there were 1,622 confirmed cases in which 52.3% were men with the mean age of 31 (SD = 11.2) years. Most was in ages of 20-29 (41.6%), 30-39 (30.7%) and 40-49 (10.5%) years. More than half of cases were Cambodian (52.8%) followed by Chinese (39.6%), and Vietnamese (5.3%). From February 20 to April 30, 2021, there were 13,255 confirmed cases initially started with Phnom Penh, then it spread over 85% of the total provinces (22/25) nationwide. Preventive measures and, a 14-day lockdown of Phnom Penh and Takhmao, city of Kandal from mid-April to early May 2021 were strictly implemented.
Conclusions
The paper highlights the initial picture of the Covid-19 epidemiology and the rapid dynamics of community spread within a shorter duration. It has been critically important to highly acknowledge the significant role of government in taking preventive measures and administrative measures in controlling the rise of Covid-19 pandemic. Despite this comprehensive effort, the increase of daily cases was still observed. The preventive measures and the lockdown may impact the daily infected cases, but might not be visible in a short time.