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[xbusman]

Dr. Thawat has grandly pronounced that Thailand is deploying 900,000 volunteers and 400,000 medical support people into the field to take control of bird flu. From what I understand, they are going to scour the country for infection door to door, report bird deaths, human illness, inform the general public and smother this forest fire.

Thats a hefty 1.3 million people knocking on doors. Now Thailand has about 60 million total souls, when we remove the elderly and youngsters, the infirm, the "too busy working to harass my neighbors", the monks, the wealthy and their families, gardeners and maids, that leaves roughly say.... 30 million or about one out of thirty people have volunteered (or will volunteer) for this service. Despite asking around both inside and outside of Bangkok, in some various Tamboons, and a few medical proffessionals, no one I can find has the foggiest idea of a single person in this 1.3 million strong army.

In fact, I get those looks that kinda seem like "just what tour group let you loose and do you have a sick buffalo yet".

Can any of you shed any light on this, are there really volunteers in every village being armed with the knowledge to comb this entire country from top to bottom or is this another "hub of volunteerism" program.

Would greatly appreciate some honest assessment from our group on the ground and hopefully familiar with the health infrastructure.