Health Ministry:HFMD in Thailand is about to end

BANGKOK, July 31 (TNA) - The Ministry of Public Health says it believes that outbreaks of the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) in Thailand will end by early September 2012, as the overall HFMD situation in the country has been relieving. Thai Permanent Secretary for Public Health Dr. Paijit Warachit told reporters Tuesday, after having a meeting on the HFMD situation with health authorities concerned, that the HFMD epidemic in Thailand should end within six weeks, or by early September. Dr. Paijit acknowledged that the HFMD epidemic has nearly ended in the Thai North although it remains in the Northeast, the Central Plain the East and the South, urging concerned parties to regularly clean public places and facilities namely playgrounds, classrooms and learning equipment and to immediately take sick children with high fever, nausea, vomiting and severe headache to doctors. According to the senior health official, there have been only 829 HFMD patients in Thailand over the past week, but so far this year, there have been 17,656 HFMD patients, two of them have died. Meanwhile, the senior health official told journalists, there have been 26,079 patients of the dengue hemorrhagic fever in Thailand so far this year, 27 of them have died, suggesting that parents also bring their children with suspicious symptoms to doctors right away. An initial symptom of the hemorrhagic fever and the HFMD is similar, as patients develope high fever and the diseases are normally spreading in the rainy season. (TNA)