Reader question: Is Thailand prepared for Ebola?

– Thailand is 'well prepared' for a possible outbreak of Ebola, says the Department of Disease Control (DDC). Deputy Director-General Opart Karnkawingpong points out that the country has experience in curbing infectious diseases such as SARS, bird flu, foot and mouth disease and "more".

Opart says this in response to the outbreak of Ebola in the US, where eight cases have been detected in the past week and a few deaths in Spain. Since March, the highly contagious disease has claimed 4.500 lives in West Africa. So far, Asia is Ebola-free.

Travelers from one of the affected countries must report to the DDC upon arrival. They are only admitted with permission from the DDC. The DDC contacts them daily for three weeks to inquire about their health.

Those who become ill go to one of the four designated hospitals in Bangkok. Outside of Bangkok, patients must report to a regional hospital. They are quarantined. Individuals who have been in contact with a suspected Ebola patient are followed for XNUMX days.

It seems to me that it is already better organized than in Europe.(, news 18/9 on thailandblog.nl)

I do not agree with previous writers Roy and Lex K.

The high-quality medical facilities in Thailand are not available in the periphery. If you cross the border as a tourist, backpacker, and you wake up with a fever after a few days, you can have Ebola and continue to walk around happily. There is not anyone with a thermometer at the land border.

Thailand didn't do that with the SARS outbreak either, Laos did, I was temperatured there. Into a local hospital with a fever. Overcrowded waiting areas, report at a counter, put plastic card in hands, look for a first counter for blood pressure, get on the benches, see a doctor (if he speaks English at all and if the tourist speaks English, both by no means all). contamination is already underway.

Now people with an African skin color rarely come here where I live, but with the current mobility (overcrowded buses) the disease is quickly spreading to Asians and to white noses like me.

An Ebola sufferer must go into isolation. In Thailand? Do you know that in many government hospitals they don't even have sterile operating rooms? Sterile cloths, sterile table, yes, but you are wheeled in in a push cart straight from the first aid station. Not a semi-sterile and then sterile environment, not even in a private hospital in Khon Kaen. And then Ebola rooms in the periphery?

Am I worried? No, the risk of malaria and a traffic accident is many times greater. But don't tell me peripheral Thailand is prepared. I think it's a myth and stand by the government.

If they in Thailand are exactly -as well prepared- for Ebola as they were a few years ago for the -bird flue-, then no. Then you saw this disease coming weeks in advance. Many sick people and deaths were still the result.

If you then know and see that hardly any Thai washes their hands before eating or after visiting the toilet, I see black. For that reason I think it's excellent that Thais make a -wai- as a greeting. I never shake hands with them

If the Mahidol faculty has a cure for Ebola, it is high time to send this remedy to Africa where it is more than necessary?.