WHO declares Thailand, 10 other SEA nations polio-free

BANGKOK, April 18 (TNA) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared Thailand and 10 other countries in Southeast Asia polio-free, as the Geneva-based United Nations agency has set a target that all economies worldwide become polio-free by 2018. Deputy Permanent-Secretary for Public Health Dr. Amnuay Kajina (อำนวย กาจีนะ) told journalists on Friday that he represented Thailand to receive the polio-free certificate from Dr.Yonas Tegegn, WHO Representative to Thailand, in New Delhi, India's capital, on March 27, 2014, after there have been no polio cases reported in the Thai Kingdom and the other 10 countries for three consecutive years, meeting the WHO criteria. The 10 other countries in Southeast Asia which have also been declared polio-free, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste. According to the senior health official, the last polio case was reported in Thailand in 1997. WHO has already certified three out of six regions worldwide for their success in eradicating polio, including the American, the European and the Western Pacific Regions. Southeast Asia is the fourth region that WHO has already declared polio-free. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Health's Department of Disease Control suggested that people not be panic about the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-Cov) or coronavirus 2012, which has spread mainly in the Middle East and a few reported cases in other countries, including Malaysia, where a dead victim was announced late last month, as the probability for an outbreak in Thailand is low, compared with strains of human flu. So far, there has been a total of 238 confirmed MERS-Cov cases worldwide, 92 of them have died, accounting for about 40 per cent of the infected cases. However, the senior official said infected camels can be carriers of the fatal disease, apart from human to human infections, insisting that his department will continue watching out against the disease, focusing on business persons and tourists travelling from the Middle East, as there has been no vaccine to prevent MERS-CoV infections. The senior official advised people to, therefore, protect themselves by eating properly-cooked food, using serving spoons and washing their hands frequently and thoroughly. (TNA)