BANGKOK, 9 August 2014 -Officials in Thailand are preparing to declare Ebola a dangerous contagion with world wide implications.
Health authorities are closely monitoring the Ebola virus outbreak in Africa and are putting in place measures to detect any possible spread of the infection into Asia, said the Permanent Secretary of the Public Health Ministry, Dr Narong Sahamethapat.
The most likely place that a member of the public could get infected by the Ebola virus is at an international airport, so the Public Health Ministry has implemented a surveillance program in Thailand to monitor the arrivals of travelers from around the world.
Officials will apply the same standard of disease screening as was used with avian flu and the severe acute respiratory syndrome, and are maintaining readiness at state hospitals across the country.
The Ministry is preparing to declare Ebola a dangerous contagion and the 6th disease apart from Cholera, yellow fever, plague, smallpox and Sars to require the expertise of the agencies responsible for handling patients affected by any of the six diseases properly.
