Swine Flu: More Bad News for Phuket
Swine Flu: More Bad News for Phuket
BANGKOK / PHUKET: — A Bangkok school will today be partially closed for three days after an 11-year-old boy came down with type-A (H1N1) influenza in what is the second known case of local infection in Thailand. Thirteen of his classmates have also developed a fever.
Deputy Public Health Minister Manit Nopamornbodi said the Bangkok student, whose name was withheld, had no record of traveling abroad.
Dr Passakorn Akarasewee, director of the Disease Control Department’s Bureau of Epidemiology, said the 11-year-old boy was the second case of domestic infection.
The first transmission of the new flu within Thailand occurred when a 19-year-old boy caught the virus from his mother after she returned from the US.
A Hong Kong man on holiday in Phuket from last Thursday until Monday was also reported, in the Phuket Gazette Online yesterday, as having fallen sick with the virus upon returning home.
“The number of confirmed cases of swine flu in Thailand is now expected to rise daily,” Dr Prat Boonyawongewirot, permanent secretary for the Public Health Ministry, said yesterday.
In the tourist city of Pattaya, authorities were asked to help control the spread of the new flu after two Taiwanese visitors were suspected of having contracted the virus while staying there.
Deputy Pattaya mayor Veerawat Khakhay said some Taiwanese tour companies are planning to cancel their programs to Thailand as a result of the latest news, adding that over 1,000 foreign visitors are due to attend an international conference in Pattaya shortly.
Thailand has to boost the confidence of tourists or their numbers will drop further,he said.
As of yesterday, the number of patients infected by type-A inluenza in Thailand had risen to 16, excluding suspected cases of foreign visitors who are no longer in the country.
Thailand found 21 new cases of Influenza 2009 in Pattaya
BANGKOK: — Thailand on Thursday confirmed 21 new cases of the Influenza 2009, all of them were discotheque staffs in Pattaya, Thai Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai said.
Among the 90 samples collected from people who worked in hotel and discotheques in Pattaya, 21 of them were confirmed to be positive to the flu.
The collection of the samples were conducted after two Taiwanese who visited Pattaya were found infected by the flu when they returned home.
“All 21 cases which were found positive to the flu were staffs of a discotheque in Pattaya,” he said.
Nightclub workers treble Thailand’s swine flu tally
BANGKOK: — The number of confirmed cases of swine flu in Thailand nearly tripled to 46 yesterday, with most of the new infections detected among workers at a nightclub in the seaside resort of Pattaya.
And a Hong Kong visitor has claimed to have contracted the virus on the southern resort island of Phuket. Thai premier Abhisit Vejjajiva has sent Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai Witthaya there to investigate.
“There are new confirmed cases both in Pattaya and Phuket,” the prime minister said. “But none of these confirmed cases is in a serious condition.”
Health officials reported 30 new cases across the kingdom, including a young British traveler, and said more were expected. But they urged people to remain calm.
Twenty-one of the new infections were found among the Pattaya nightclub workers, who were tested after two Taiwanese tourists claimed to have contracted the disease there upon their return home.
Four other cases were found at the privately run St Gabriel’s College in Bangkok. The college has now announced it will close for one week.
The remaining five infected people in Thailand are being kept in quarantine.
Since the virus was first discovered in the United States and Mexico in April, 74 countries have reported more than 27,000 cases, including 141 deaths, according to figures from the World Health Organization.
In Australia, the flu tally has ticked up by 39 to 1,263 cases, with 1,011 in the southern state of Victoria. Authorities in the state said four people were being treated in hospital intensive care wards.
That was a potentially worrying escalation for Australian health chiefs, who have previously reported only mild symptoms among flu victims.
But the flu has spread rapidly in Australia – the world’s fifth worst- hit country – since sick passengers were allowed to leave a cruise ship in Sydney late last month.
Victoria has recorded numerous cases of domestic transmission, which occurs when the virus spreads between people within a community rather than the infection being driven by people coming from overseas.
In Germany, 27 children from a Japanese school in Duesseldorf tested positive for flu. The Japanese families affected have been quarantined in their homes and the school closed.
– Agencies 2009-06-12
WHO raises alert level as flu spreads to 74 countries
After weeks of very public wrestling with its own conscience, the World Health Organization declared the global swine flu outbreak a pandemic on Thursday.
The move indicates that the virus is spreading geographically, but does not mean that the illness, generally described as mild, has become any more severe. As she raised the global alert to level 6, the highest possible level, the agency’s chief, Dr. Margaret Chan, immediately emphasized that she expects the early phase of the pandemic to be of “moderate severity.” But, she added, “the virus writes the rules,” so countries should prepare for mutations that could make it worse and for second waves of illness. And rich countries should help poor ones less able to protect themselves, she said.
“The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic,” said Dr. Chan, the W.H.O.’s director general. “We are all in this together.”
Thirty suspected swine flu cases in Phuket
PHUKET: — Four tourists in Phuket are suspected of being infected with swine flu and are currently in quarantine in Phuket hospitals.
According to the Phuket Provincial Public Health Office, three of the quarantined tourists are believed to be Pakistani nationals. They were immediately quarantined at Patong Hospital after thermo scanners showed they were suffering from high fevers.
The fourth tourist is a Thai national who has been quarantined at a “private hospital”, according to a report on Thai-language news website Manager Online.
Blood samples from all four have been sent to the Regional Medical Sciences Center in Surat Thani for testing.
Blood samples from 26 Patong nightclub employees were also sent for testing at the center. They reported coughing and flu symptoms after coming into contact with a Hong Kong tourist who came down with swine flu during a stay in Patong. For our previous report, click here.
That man is currently being treated in Princess Margaret Hospital in Hong Kong. He stayed in Patong from June 4 to June 8.
On June 7, he began to show flu symptoms and was diagnosed with swine flu upon his return to Hong Kong.
Phuket Public Health Office (PPHO) Director Dr Pongsawas Ratanasang told Manager that the PPHO has been in communication with the stricken Hong Kong man via the internet.
Dr Pongsawas said the man reported visiting “many countries” before his stay in Phuket.
The PPHO have yet to identify which country the man was infected in.
While in Patong he stayed at one hotel and visited three or four nightclubs, the report quoted Dr Pongsawas as saying.
PPHO officials have examined employees of these establishments to determine if any were infected after coming into contact with the man.
Of 100 people examined, 26 showed flu symptoms. They are now receiving treatment and their blood samples have been sent to the Regional Medical Sciences Center in Surat Thani for testing.
Dr Phadungkiat Uthoksaynee of the PPHO said the results should be released “within one to three days’ time”.
Bangkok school fumigations; Phuket nightlife venues closes in virus response
BANGKOK, June 13 (TNA) – Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) officials on Saturday began cleaning and fumigating all 435 schools under the agency’s administration in the Thai capital, while entertainment venues in Thailand’s Andaman Sea resort province of Phuket have been asked to close for five days after an employee was found to have contracted the Influenza A(H1N1) virus, officials said.
Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said the two-day school cleaning campaign, ending Sunday, is aimed at preventing the spread of the flu to students under City Hall’s supervision.
The BMA campaign follows the H1N1 diagnosis Friday of a student of St. Gabriel’s College, a private school operated by the Roman Catholic Brothers of St. Gabriel in Bangkok’s Samsen district. A private tutoring school the school the student attended on the weekend will also be closed for a week to curb the spread of the disease.
Urging cooperation from all concerned state agencies, especially at border checkpoints, to help prevent the spread of the virus, Mr. Sukhumbhand said he had invited about 2,000 operators of Bangkok’s Internet cafes, school administrators, and the managers of malls and cinemas for a meeting on Monday.
He said they will be told of the danger of the disease and also be asked to help clean their business establishments properly in response to the virus, he said.
Mr. Sukhumbhand said BMA officials will join with the First Army Region in cleaning 431 temples in Bangkok during July 4-6. The campaign will start before Buddhist Lent which begins on July 8.
Meanwhile, entertainment establishments on Phuket Island were asked during a meeting Saturday to close their businesses for five days so that the owner would have enough time to clean and spray their places.
The request was made after an employee of one entertainment centre was found to have contracted the virus, becoming the first case to have been reported in the popular resort.
Blood tests on 26 employees of Phuket nightlife and other entertainment venues on the island believed to have come into close contact with Hong Kong tourists who returned home recently and were diagnosed with the virus, will be known later Saturday
Officials muzzled on H1N1
BANGKOK: — The Public Health Ministry is asking provincial health and hospital chiefs not to speak to the media about influenza A (H1N1) cases in an effort to calm disquiet over the extent of the spread of the virus.
Ministry spokesman Suphan Sithamma said a letter was being sent to senior health figures warning them not to say anything about the number of flu cases and details about the patients. All information was to be filtered through health authorities in Bangkok.
PHUKET CITY: — The number of new swine flu cases reported in Phuket has been reduced by almost half, with 271 reported cases and the death toll still at two.
To help people who contract the type A(H1N1) virus that causes the disease, the Phuket Public Health Office (PPHO) has signed contracts with 12 private clinics to distribute the the antiviral drug oseltamivir free of charge, PPHO director Dr Pongsawas Ratanasang told the Gazette.
The clinics, which can source supplies from government hospitals, have already distributed 600 tablets under the program.
The tablets come in boxes of 10 tablets each and there are currently 44,000 tablets in stock in Phuket, enough to treat 4,400 patients.