Thailand on alert against dengue fever

BANGKOK, June 17 (TNA) - The Thai government, through the Ministry of Public Health, is intensifying its public campaigns against dengue fever, particularly among youths, after figures show that the number of dengue fever fatalities in Thailand has become the second highest in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), after the Philippines. As the number of dengue fever patients in Thailand has tripled since early this year, to more than 43,600, compared with last year's figure in their corresponding period, the Ministry of Public Health’s Department of Disease Control and Yaemsa-aad Rangsit School in Bangkok's suburban Pathum Thani province, on Monday, for instance, jointly launched a campaign against dengue fever in the lead-up to the formation of the ASEAN Community (AC) by 2015, covering the introduction of strategic measures against dengue fever to educate school personnel and students on how to prevent themselves and their communities from the deadly virus, focused on the eradication of breeding sources of the common-house mosquito, the carrier of the disease. In Lamphun province in the Thai North, public health officials in all districts are also actively providing spraying services at local schools, temples, communities and other public places to get rid of sources of the common-house mosquito; while locals have been urged to also eradicate breeding grounds of the common-house mosquito in their respective areas regularly and to immediately see doctors if they suffer, or find people who suffer, from dengue fever-like symptoms for two days, as there have been 327 dengue fever patients, mostly aged 15-24, in Lamphun alone since early this year. Meanwhile, Disease Control Department Director-General Dr. Pornthep Siriwanarangsan acknowledged that the number of people killed by dengue fever in Thailand has, so far, stood at about 50, the second highest in ASEAN after about 157 in the Philippines. (TNA)