A United Nations international staff member in Myanmar has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, with the country reporting its eighth confirmed case just after midnight on Saturday.

The 58-year-old Swiss national was admitted to a government hospital in the capital Naypyitaw on Thursday with a cough, sickness and diarrhea, the Ministry of Health and Sport announced.

She arrived in Naypyitaw from Geneva through Bangkok on March 18 and was quarantined at a hotel, the ministry said in a statement. 

The ministry also said that on March 13, while in Switzerland, she was in close contact for two hours with her father, who was also diagnosed with the Covid-19 disease. She developed symptoms on March 22.

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While the health ministry did not say the patient’s profession, the UN office in Myanmar issued a statement a few hours after the government's confirming one of its international staff members had tested positive. 

"As the staff member began to experience symptoms consistent with Covid-19, (she) was taken to and isolated in a designated public hospital where the test was taken," said the statement.

The highly contagious virus has claimed more than 27,000 lives globally and infected just under 600,000 people, according to a tally updated Saturday.  

Myanmar, with its desperately underfunded healthcare system, has so far tested 324 people despite a call from the World Health Organisation to “test, test, test” for the virus. 

Among the eight individuals who tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Myanmar, the Swiss national is the first foreigner, though another patient is from Myanmar but holds US citizenship. 

One of the last patients is a 60-year-old tour guide who has not travelled overseas in the past two weeks before her diagnosis, according to the ministry. However, she travelled with French tourists locally, meaning she could be the first case of local transmission. 

Her symptoms include coughing and vomiting, and on Thursday she was admitted to Yangon General Hospital.

Another patient is a 29-year-old Myanmar citizen who recently came back from the UK. He travelled together to Barbados with another patient who was diagnosed on Wednesday. 

Hours before the health ministry's official announcement, a screenshot of the list of three latest patients identifying their names, ages and the hospitals where they are receiving treatment circulated on Facebook. It is not known who leaked the information. 

Myanmar announced its first two confirmed cases on March 23, making it one of the last few countries in the world to declare the presence of the virus.

Seven of the eight cases Myanmar has so far confirmed are imported, with the patients recently travelling from the US, UK, Australia, or Switzerland. 

Three patients are in their 50s or 60s, while the rest are in their 20s or 30s.