Health ministry reports Thailand’s 18th H1N1 death

BANGKOK, July 12 (TNA) – The Ministry of Public Health confirmed Thailand’s 18th death due to the Influenza A (H1N1), a 19-year-old man from the southern province of Krabi, according to Deputy Permanent Secretary Paijit Warachit.

The man was a worker in a rubber plantation in Thungyai district of the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat. He died at hospital on Saturday night.

Provincial health official Dr. Nopporn Chuenklin said that health officials were sent to the area he lived and worked to investigate how he contracted the virus.

The governor of Nakhon Si Thammarat convened a meeting Sunday after the new death was reported. Meeting at city hall the participants to discuss preventive measures to contain the spread of the potentially lethal virus.

Workers are scheduled to spray disinfectants in two districts of the province on Monday.

Meanwhile,  Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Sunday open the country’s first H1N1 vaccine laboratory at Silpakorn University.  The vaccination pilot plant is expected to be operational in October.

The first two million doses of vaccine were expected to be ready by January at the latest, said the public health minister Witthaya Keawparadai.(TNA)