Myanmar shuts schools after rise in COVID cases
All but one of the new cases announced on Wednesday (August 26) were in the western state of Rakhine, found in nine different locations, each linked to an outbreak in the state capital Sittwe, where a lockdown and curfew were imposed last week.
Myanmar's outbreaks has been relatively small compared with other countries in the region, with just six deaths and 574 infections in total, but an increase in COVID-19 cases by nearly 35% in just over a week is causing some concern.
One of Wednesday's cases was in the biggest city Yangon, in an individual seeking medical clearance to travel.
The virus resurfaced in Myanmar on Aug 16 after a month without community transmission, with the majority of those cases in Sittwe.
Sittwe is also home to crowded camps where about 100,000 Rohingya Muslims have been confined since violence erupted in 2012.
