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[Boater]

PHUKET: The Public Health Ministry said yesterday it had detected a suspected first case of the deadly type A (H1N1) influenza in Thailand and is awaiting confirmation of the infection from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States. The result of the CDC's tests are expected within seven days.

No suspected cases of the type A (H1N1) virus have been found in Phuket or elsewhere in Thailand.

Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai told a press conference that monitoring by the Epidemiology Bureau in Bangkok had found 25 suspects from April 28 to Friday, most of whom had traveled to countries with outbreaks of the flu, and 15 of whom had been cleared. Ten remain in quarantine pending lab confirmation, he said.

One is suspected to have had A (H1N1), having returned from an outbreak country, but has recovered, Wittaya said. The ministry has already submitted that person's sample to the US CDC lab because Thailand has no sample of the A (H1N1) virus to compare with for confirmation, he said.

Declining to give details of the suspect, Wittaya affirmed that the ministry had everything under control with strict measures in place to prevent the virus spreading.

Chulalongkorn University virologist Yong Poovorawan applauded the ministry's submission of the sample to the CDC, as this was Thailand's first suspected case.

Dr Rungrueng Kitphati, chief of the Medical Science Department's International Health Regulation Coordination Centre, noted that samples had been sent abroad in the same way during the Sars and bird-flu scares.

The Thai Disease Control Department's spokesman, Dr Kamnuan Ungchusak, said the patient's samples had been sent to the US on Thursday evening.

The patient, who was well informed about the situation, had a fever on arrival in Thailand and had taken the antiviral drug Oseltamivir for five days until recovering, he added.

The ministry has been screening arrivals, especially from Mexico, the US, Canada, Spain and the UK, at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport since April 27. By Friday it had screened 404,134 passengers.

Monitoring of arrivals by air continues, with detection scanners out in force at Bangkok, Phuket and Chiangmai airports. Scanners have ordered and will soon be in place at land borders nationwide.

http://www.phuketgaz...dex.asp?id=7331

[geriatrickid]

An unsettling report and one that is an embarrassing admission. It also speaks to the lack of preparedness of Thailand to deal with this virus.  

...is awaiting confirmation of the infection from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States. The result of the CDC's tests are expected within seven days.       Sorry, but I believe that they wouldn't need to wait 7 days if they had invested in the facilities to do the cultures and mapping.

The ministry has already submitted that person's sample to the US CDC lab because Thailand has no sample of the A (H1N1) virus to compare with for confirmation, he said.        Unacceptable and misleading. Both the US CDC and the Canadian National Microbiology Lab have made  samples and genetic codes readily available. Any health agency can get access. To say that they have no sample is the equivalent of saying that Thailand doesn't have a sufficent  quantity of intellectual capital to work with the codes. Even if a sample was given, what exactly would Thailand do with the sample? Where are the specialized labs needed to deal with the virus?   Basically, what the article says is that Thailand is scientifically inept. Heartbreaking statement because there are some very good researchers in Thailand and if I was one of them and read this, I'd be insulted.

Samples have been made available to the labs that have the expertise.
Need proof? That small specimen container that blew a safety gasket on a Swiss train a couple weaks ago was a shared sample. On May 8, the BBC reported that Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had already made genetic information on the swine flu virus publicly available to scientists around the world.  The report then went on to discuss how the UK Health protection Agency was  analyzing  European  samples using these codes.  It's the genetic code of the virus that counts, not the  virus itself when you need to identify the virus. How is it that tiny little New Zealand was able toundertake both genetic code and sample comparisons at Middlemore Hospital?

Chulalongkorn University virologist Yong Poovorawan applauded the ministry's submission of the sample to the CDC, as this was Thailand's first suspected case.
With all due respect to someone that has worked on  avian flu and has a good reputation I wonder if he was quoted out of context. Is he applauding or lamenting the  dispatch of samples. Just imagine what the professor could do if he had a state of the art lab, funding and a team of researchers.

The ministry has been screening arrivals, especially from Mexico, the US, Canada, Spain and the UK, at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport since April 27. By Friday it had screened 404,134 passengers.
So does this mean that countries that have cases get a free pass? What if they come in via another country like Taiwan or Malaysia? France, Italy and the UK and many other countries now have a significant number of cases. If you screen, you have to screen everyone, not just selected countries.

When I read articles like this, I feel for the  Thai scientists and public health  professionals. They deserve alot more respect than is shown.