The Ministry of Public Health has detected the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants of the coronavirus in the southern region, but there are no reports of other mutated strains.
Permanent Secretary of the Public Health Ministry Dr. Kiatiphum Wongrajit said there has been a falloff in COVID-19 infections although daily cases continue to swing between four and five digits. Bangkok and all regions apart from the South are recording fewer infections.
Notably, the infection graph for the four southernmost provinces has been on a rise, and this means that regional infections are high. Dr. Kiatiphum said relevant agencies are doubling down on their work to take control of the situation. He expects daily cases to drop to about 5,000 per day by the end of October.
Dr. Suthep Phetmak, the Ministry of Public Health’s inspector-general for the Regional Health Office 12, who oversees Phatthalung, Trang, Satun, Songkhla, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, explained that infections in the south have ballooned since August and most cases resulted from transmission among family members. He said family gathering, which is part of the southern way of life, was a point of concern, on top of the low vaccination rate.
The Regional Health Office 12 office is working to foster an understanding among local people about how joint prayer sessions can resume once more people take up the vaccine and the inoculation rate reaches 70%. Prayer gatherings are currently banned, but individuals who have received two doses of vaccine are able to travel with more convenience.
The office’s target is to reduce COVID-19 infections by 10% per week and to have the situation under control before the New Year. Dr. Suthep said the office’s Comprehensive COVID-19 Response Team (CCRT) was conducting screenings and bringing patients in for treatment, while also working to achieve a higher vaccination coverage.
According to the inspector-general, COVID-19 variants in the South differed from the rest of the country where the Delta variant was prevalent. Up to 58% of infections in the South are the Alpha variant and 38% are the Delta variant. Most cases of the Delta variant found were transmitted from locals in Trang, Phatthalung, and Satun who had returned from Bangkok. The Beta variant caused the remaining percentage of infections although most cases were limited to Narathiwat Province.
Addressing concerns of the three COVID variants mixing and mutating, Dr. Suthep asserted that no signs of mutation have yet been detected. (NNT)
 |
 |
 |
