HFMD patients tends to drop in Bangkok

BANGKOK, July 25 (TNA) - The number of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) patients tends to drop in Bangkok; while health officials have kept trying to stop its spread nationwide. Dr. Wongwat Liewlak, communicable disease control director of the Health Department of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), told journalists Wednesday that the number of HFMD patients in the Thai capital has dropped, from 300 a day early this month to less than 100 a day at present, and the downward trend has continued. Dr. Wongwat said that so far this year, 3,175 people have been diagnosed with the HFMD in Bangkok, and that the declining patients in the city is due to cooperation from school management, parents and concerned agencies, as school staffs have screened out students with high body temperatures and rashes on their hands, feet and mouths and classrooms with more than two ill students were closed. Charnwit Thapsupan, Deputy Secretary-General of the Private Education Commission, revealed that two more schools in Bangkok have been closed until July 30, namely St. Francis Xavier Convent and Pasita Kindergarten, after there were seven ill students at each school. Benjarong Srinet, director of the Bureau of Special Affairs at the Office of the Education Permanent Secretary, said that 57 more students at 20 schools nationwide had fallen ill and one of them might be infected with the HFMD, and that the lion’s share of ill students or 16 students was reported in Khon Kaen province. In Surin province in the Thai Northeast bordering Cambodia, local health officials have continued checking body temperatures of children who enter the Thai territory from the Cambodian Oddar Meanchey province through the Chong Jom border crossing to block the HFMD, but a manager of a local market near the border crossing said that the number of tourists have dropped by more than 50 per cent since the HFMD outbreak. Meanwhile, there is an annual training session, set from July 25-26, at the Sakon Nakhon Provincial Army Command's club to prepare relevant officials against avian and human influenza. (TNA)