|
 Tourism accounts for about 10 percent of the Thai economy, and the
country is also the top destination in Southeast Asia for patients
seeking low-cost, quality healthcare, with an average 1.4 million
medical tourists a year, compared with 600,000 for Singapore, a Thai
medical tourism association said.
That meant the stakes were high for Thailand when the health
ministry reported on Thursday the first case of MERS in a
75-year-old man from Oman, who had traveled to Bangkok for treatment
for a heart condition.
South Korea, currently battling the largest MERS outbreak outside
Saudi Arabia, reported two more deaths and three new cases on
Monday, bringing the number of fatalities to 27 and the total
infections to 172.
In Thailand, although authorities said 176 people had been exposed
to the MERS patient, Deputy Health Minister Vachira Pengchan said on
Monday there were no new cases.
"It is the very fact that we are a travel and medical hub that works
in our favor and that allows us to be prepared," Tourism Minister
Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul told Reuters.
"It is our experience handling foreign visitors and medical tourists
from high-risk regions like the Middle East and South Korea.
Thailand is also prepared because we saw what happened in South
Korea, we had time."
As well as being a gateway for many of the more than 25 million
visitors to Thailand each year, Bangkok is also one of the region's
main aviation hubs.
At the city's Suvarnabhumi Airport, face masks were handed out to
passengers at the weekend, while Thailand's health and tourism
ministers showed reporters thermoscanning equipment and special
aeroplane parking bays set aside for flights coming in from
high-risk countries.
The airport has ordered heightened screening of arrivals from South
Korea and the Middle East, general manager Sirote Duangratana told
reporters.
"FLAWLESS" RESPONSE
The unidentified man whom laboratory tests confirmed on June 18 had
MERS was a patient at the high-end Bumrungrad Hospital. Popular with
international visitors, it says 20 percent of its patients are from
the Middle East.
The sick man was later moved to an infectious disease institute.
Doctors at Bumrungrad Hospital said on Friday that 58 staff had been
quarantined and were under observation.
[to top of second column] |
Prasert Thongcharoen, an advisor to Thailand's Disease Control
Department, said he had investigated Bumrungrad's handling of the
MERS case and found it to be "flawless".
"They put the patient in an isolation room and everything that was
needed for infectious control was done," Prasert said in a telephone
interview.
The Geneva-based World Health Organisation, in an e-mailed response
to Reuters, also commended Thailand's response.
"Thailand diagnosed and isolated the MERS patient in a designated,
well-equipped facility," said Doctor Poonam Khetrapal Singh,
regional director, WHO South East Asia Region.
Josef Woodman, CEO of Patients Beyond Borders, a U.S.-based website
that offers consumers information about medical travel, said
Thailand could see a temporary drop in visitors but, as with the
impact of last year's coup, it was likely to be short-lived.
"I believe, as with social and political unrest in Thailand ... a
temporary drop in tourism and medical tourism may be experienced,
usually with a rapid recovery to normal levels," he said.
Josephine Guillot, 28, a French postgraduate student traveling
around Southeast Asia, said she had come to the Bumrungrad Hospital
for a health check-up despite knowing that Thailand's first MERS
patient was treated there.
"I'm comfortable getting treatment here," she told Reuters. "The
news does not deter me."
(Additional reporting by Manuphattr Dhanananphorn, Pracha
Hariraksapitak, Kaweewit Kaewjinda and Aukkarapon Niyomyat; Editing
by Alex Richardson)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
