Nearly 20 migrant workers tested positive for tuberculosis

TAK, THAILAND, July 21 (TNA) - Mae Sot Hospital in Thailand's northwestern Tak Province, bordering Myanmar, has found 16 tuberculosis patients while conducting medical checkups for migrant workers. Pranee Mahasakphan, a registered senior professional nurse of Mae Sot Hospital, told journalists on Thursday that her hospital has provided health check-ups for more than 10,000 migrant workers applying for the legal registration at a one-stop service center in Mae Sot and found 16 of them were tested positive to tuberculosis. Pranee said the 16 migrant workers, thus, did not pass the health check-ups and are not allowed to work in Thailand, but they will receive medical treatment for 6-12 months until they are fully recovered and will be sent back to their home countries. According to the senior nurse, medical treatment costs are either covered by health insurance policies bought for them by their employers, or paid by their employers who did not buy health insurance for them. The senior nurse acknowledged chest x-ray also found that about 1,000 additional migrant workers had irregularities in their lungs and more tests on their phlegm samples would be conducted for further diagnoses. "So far, the results of 80 per cent of tests have been known, none of them have been tested positive to tuberculosis", the nurse revealed. (TNA)