New Delhi, May 13 -- Bhutan is among a handful of nations in the world that have been able to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus infection. Bhutan's first COVID-19 positive patient was diagnosed on March 5 when it was still early days for the spread of the disease and the World Health Organisation (WHO) was still almost a week away from declaring it a global pandemic. But decisive action and a proactive approach to tackling the outbreak restricted the number of cases to 11 positive cases, five recovered and zero deaths as on May 11, 2020.

Landlocked between two of the world's most populous nations, China where the virus outbreak began and India, with whom Bhutan has an open, porous border, the Himalayan kingdom with a population...