Thailand's health experts meet to cope with HFMD

BANGKOK, July 20 (TNA) - Thailand's health experts are scheduled to meet in Bangkok on Friday afternoon to discuss measures to prevent and to bring outbreaks of the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) under control. The Thai Ministry of Public Health's Department of Disease Control called a meeting of the experienced virologists to jointly work out effective measures to cope with the HFMD. The Thai Ministries of Public Health and Education also jointly organized an activity today to educate students in Bangkok and nearby provinces on the HFMD. The Ministry of Public Health has, meanwhile, assigned its officials in all provinces to continue taking serious actions against the HFMD, ordering them to also open special command centers in their respective areas to contain the disease if there are more than 10 patients in their provinces. From January to July 16 this year, 13,918 people in Thailand were reported with the HFMD nationwide, the number of HFMD patients has even kept rising in several Thai provinces with several schools having announced a temporary closure for a big clean-up subsequently after some of their students were detected with the HFMD, all of whom, according to Thai health authorities, suffered from non-fatal strains of the disease. (TNA)