Bird flu spreads in Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima province

A total of 220 patients and hospital staff remain under close observation at Nakhon Ratchasima’s Rajanagarindra Psychiatric Hospital following an outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu virus there, said Health minister Witthaya Buranasiri.

Speaking in Ayutthaya yesterday, Witthaya said the surveillance was necessary after the number of patients and staff infected at the hospital in central Nakhon Ratchasima rose yesterday.

On Tuesday, 28 people were infected. Of them, 24 are hospital patients, two are staff members and the other two are their children. The patients are in quarantine and under observation at the hospital, while the staff and their children are under quarantine at home.

Yesterday, the number of infected rose to 41.

Thirty-six of them are patients at the hospital and five others are hospital staff, the minister said.

Witthaya said the conditions of the infected people have generally improved after they were administered with the antiviral drug, Oseltamivir.

The 220 other patients and staff of the hospital who may have been exposed to the flu have to stay under close observation over the next seven days, he said.

Witthaya said that apart from 41 infected people at the hospital, no new H1N1 cases have been detected elsewhere. He was confident the virus has been contained. Vaccines can be taken to prevent the virus, while tSTC infected will be fully cured. About 90 of the 300 people around the infected hospital have been vaccinated, the minister said.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/health/298961/swine-flu-spreads-in-nakhon-ratchasima

 

Category: Health