Thailand took four days to confirm country's first Mers infection, raising fears virus could spread
PUBLISHED : Friday, 19 June, 2015, 1:49pm
UPDATED : Friday, 19 June, 2015, 4:55pm
Reuters in Bangkok
A Thai laboratory worker from the National Institute of Health Department of Medical Sciences near Bangkok tests tissue samples from people suspected of having Mers and who recently returned from South Korea. Photo: Reuters
Thai authorities took nearly four days to confirm the country’s first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), the health ministry said today – a time lag likely to raise fears of a further spread of the deadly virus in Asia.
Thailand confirmed its first case of Mers on Thursday: a 75-year-old businessman from Oman. This comes just as an outbreak in South Korea, which began last month and infected 166 people as well as killed 24, appeared to be levelling off.
The businessman arrived in Bangkok on Monday for medical treatment for a heart ailment at a private hospital, Thai Public Health Minister Rajata Rajatanavin said.
Rajata said 59 people who had come into contact with the infected man were being monitored, including fellow passengers on the man’s flight to Bangkok. Three of the 59 have been confined to hospital while the rest have been told to stay at home for 14 days.
READ MORE: Thailand confirms first case of Mers as cost of South Korean patient in China put at 8 million yuan
Rajata declined to identify the hospital and said the 75-year-old patient was transferred to infectious diseases institute in Bangkok on Thursday and put in quarantine.
“It took about four days to diagnose this case and two lab tests,” Rajata said.
The Thai case will compound fears in Asia of a repeat of a 2002-2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars), which began in China and killed about 800 people globally.
Shares in Thai aviation companies and hotels fell today, with hotel operator Central Plaza Hotel plunging 6.6 per cent. Airports operator Airports of Thailand dropped 4.2 per cent to a more than three-week low.
A member of the Thai Airways crew disinfects the cabin of an aircraft of the national carrier at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport. Photo: Reuters
Mers was first identified in humans in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and the majority of cases have been in the Middle East.
Isolated cases have cropped up in Asia before South Korea’s outbreak began last month, and Thailand is the fourth Asian country to register a case.
China has had one case recently, that of a South Korean man who travelled to China via Hong Kong despite authorities suggesting he stay in voluntary quarantine at home.
South Korea’s outbreak, the largest outside Saudi Arabia, has been traced to a 68-year-old man who returned from a business trip to the Middle East in early May.
It has spread through hospitals with all of its infections known to have occurred in health care facilities.
The outbreak in South Korea appeared to have peaked, with just one new case reported on Friday, though authorities were taking no chances.
“Given the current developments, we have judged that it has levelled off, but we need to watch further spread, further cases from so-called intensive control hospitals,” the South Korean health ministry’s chief policy official, Kwon Deok-cheol, told a briefing in Seoul.
Thailand Public Health Minister Rajata Rajatanavin talks to reporters during press conference. Photo: AP
As part of those efforts, South Korean authorities were contacting nearly 42,000 people who had visited a hospital in the capital, Seoul, that has been at the centre of the outbreak, with half of the country’s infections happening there.
Authorities said they aimed to contact people who had been at the hospital, the Samsung Medical Centre, between May 27-29 and June 2-10, and they raised the number of those who may have been in contact with Mers cases there to about 7,000 people.
Thailand’s acting permanent secretary at the health ministry, Surachat Satitniramai, said Thailand was using similar drills as those employed for an outbreak of the H1N1 bird flu virus in 2009 to prepare for any spread of Mers.
Information posters were being put up at hospitals and air passengers from countries at risk were being screened.
The Middle East is an important source of tourists for Thailand with arrivals from the region up by nearly 50 per cent in January, according to the tourism office.
Bangkok is also one of the region’s main aviation hubs.
The vast majority of Mrs infections have been in Saudi Arabia, where more than 1,000 people have been infected since 2012, and about 454 have died. There is no cure.
