PM: There are about 14,000 HFMD patients in Thailand

BANGKOK, July 24 (TNA) - About 14,000 Thai people have been infected with the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has ordered effective disease control measures. Yingluck told journalists after the Cabinet's weekly meeting in Bangkok Tuesday she has been initially reported that there have been some 14,000 HFMD patients in Thailand and she has, therefore, instructed the Ministry of Public Health to quickly contain the disease and to take care of the family whose two-year-old daughter has died from it. Yingluck insisted that Thailand's control on HFMD is effective to a certain extent and she has ordered agencies concerned, including the Ministries of public health, Interior and Education to inculcate the public on the disease. Meanwhile, Deputy Public Health Minister Surawit Khonsomboon said that all concerned parties are trying their best to contain the disease and the HFMD situation has been improving from last week as the number of patients has kept falling, and that epidemiologists have expected the spread of the HFMD will be fading over the next 4-6 weeks. Besides, according to the deputy health minister, the HFMD has neither entered Thailand from Cambodia nor mutated and Thai authorities can cope with the disease without seeking assistance from the World Health Organization (WHO) so far. (TNA)