Some 500 cases of malaria have been detected in Thailand's southern Chumphon province with about 50 people already hospitalized, local newspaper said Monday.

In a fresh outbreak of the disease, 456 people were tested positive to malaria, Theves Naluan, head of the Vector-borne Disease Control Center in Chumphon province, was quoted by The Nation as saying.

Half of the cases were reported in the province's Muang Chumphon district, where almost the entire village has infected with the disease, while the rest were spread around other areas.

At least 54 malaria patients were being treated in hospital, said the director of Chumphon Khet Udomsak Hospital.

Local health officials were trying to get the situation under control by spraying mosquito-killing chemicals in affected villages.

However, containing the disease was not easy since villagers regularly travel deep into the jungle along the Myanmar-Thai border to collect wild plants, which made the follow-up and the check on all cases more difficult, said Theves.

Source: Xinhua