WHO Grants $1M to Thailand for TB Control Efforts
Thailand will receive 35.5 million baht, or about $1 million, from the World Health Organization to study effective ways to treat and control the spread of tuberculosis, Prat Boonyawongvirot, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Public Health, said Monday, the Nation reports. Prat made the announcement at the Public Health National Conference on Health Policies for 2009.
Prat said WHO officials believe Thailand can "find a way to control the disease and come up with guidelines for other countries." The health ministry plans to focus TB control efforts on prison inmates, Prat said, adding that he has ordered heads of local health offices and provincial hospitals to sanitize Thailand's 141 prisons to reduce the risk of TB. According to ministry records, about 10% of the country's 180,000 inmates have TB and 1,800 inmates have died from the disease.
The program also will address TB among taxi drivers, following the launch of a screening program in September at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport that found 32 active TB cases among participating taxi drivers. In addition, the health ministry intends to reduce TB incidence among HIV-positive people. About 30% of the the approximately 600,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Thailand are coinfected with TB.
According to the Nation, Thailand is ranked 18th of the 22 countries with the highest TB burden worldwide (Pongphon, Nation, 10/28). There were 125,291 people with TB in Thailand in 2006 (GlobalHealthFacts.org, 10/28).
