Thailand ready to assist Cambodia in handling HFMD

BANGKOK, July 13 (TNA) - Thai Public Health Minister Wittaya Buranasiri has announced that his ministry is ready to send a Thai medical team to Cambodia to help the neighbouring country handle against ongoing outbreaks of a fatal viral strain of the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), if requested. Wittaya acknowledged that he had asked Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to express Thailand’s readiness to assist Cambodia in strengthening surveillance, control and treatment of the HFMD, during her one-day visit to the neighbouring country on Friday to attend a US-ASEAN business seminar in the Cambodian Siem Reap Province, as invited by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Wittaya insisted that Thai health staff, especially those working near the Thai-Cambodian border, have been closely monitoring updates to prevent any spreading across the border of the deadly HFMD from Cambodia, where dozens of children have reportedly died from the virulent viral strain. Meanwhile, some children in Thailand's central Ratchaburi Province have been lately found with a non-virulent strain of the HFMD; while the overall situation in the country has remained normal.(TNA)