BANGKOK, April 11 – Thailand’s Public Health Ministry has reserved four million pills for treatment of influenza as China, Vietnam and Cambodia are battling a new round of bird flu.
Public Health Minister Pradit Sintavanarong said Wednesday that the ministry is working closely with the Livestock Development Department, the World Health Organisation and the Thai-US Cooperation Centre in monitoring the spread of H7N9 and H5N1 viruses.
The new H7N9 strain has killed nine people in China, while H5N1 has claimed the lives of a four-year-old boy in Vietnam and eight people, six of them children, in Cambodia.
Dr Pradit said Thailand has been on alert for the pandemic though the country has been free from bird flu in the last seven years.
Oseltamivir and Zanamivir are two anti-virus drugs reserved by the Public Health Ministry, he said.
