Article 44 of Cambodia’s Disaster Management Law could be applied as additional measures to manage COVID-19 situation in the country.

The possibility was shared by H.E. Kim Santepheap, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice in his official Facebook page, following the third COVID-19 cluster infection, called the Feb. 20 Community Event.

As explained by the secretary of state in his post, the Article 44 of the Disaster Management Law states that “Any person who is aware of serious risk and does not immediately report the information to the competent authorities shall be punished with imprisonment between one to six months and/or a fine up to 100,000 to 1,000,000 riel (from US$25 to US$250).”

Cambodia adopted the Law on Disaster Management on July 10, 2015, and it contains 10 chapters and 48 articles.

The Royal Government of Cambodia as well as concerned ministries and institutions is working hard to contain the Feb. 20 incident – the most complicated cluster infection in the country so far.

With just only 3 days, nearly 100 detections, including the cases with the new COVID-19 variant, have been reported, and over 40 hotspots have been identified.