The H1N1 Media Circus Marches On, Thailand.

The Thai cabinet on Tuesday (today) approved a 600 million baht budget for the purchase of two million doses of A(H1N1) flu vaccine from France.

The cabinet also agreed to the manufacturer's condition that it would not be responsible for any side effects from the use of the vaccine.

Great the government is already taking on the responsibility of any serious side affects from the drug. If a person dies from side affects the government can offer some pathetic amount of money to the family and just move on.

The cabinet also approved an additional 250 million baht budget to buy another 10 million tablets of oseltamivir antiviral medication.

The purchase will increase the stockpile of the drug to 15 million tablets, which should be enough to deal with the flu outbreak.

Benefits of Antiviral Drugs

Treatment: If you get sick, antiviral drugs can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They may also prevent serious influenza complications. For treatment, antiviral drugs work best if started as soon after getting sick as possible, and might not work if started more than 48 hours after illness starts.

On July 7, 2009 the World Health Organization announced the identification of a third person with oseltamivir resistant novel H1N1 virus infection.

Three people fully recovered after uncomplicated illnesses and did not have contact with each other. Two of the three people are reported to have developed illness while taking oseltamivir preventatively after an exposure to a close contact with novel influenza A (H1N1). The third person had no known exposure to oseltamivir.

Results from ongoing testing of novel influenza A (H1N1) viruses indicate that oseltamivir resistance remains rare.

So does this mean that buying this antiviral drug will be useless, as it won’t help them recover quicker and make the virus so severe?

The interim recommendations for the use of antiviral medications for chemoprophylaxis and treatment have not been changed http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/recommendations.htm.


The Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva will go on local Thai Channel 11 at 8:30 pm Tuesday (tonight) in an effort to pacify the panicked public following the type-A (H1N1) influenza outbreak.The prime minister will address the public together with senior doctors from the Public Health Ministry.

This is good news as so much of what has come out of his mouth has been nothing but dribble. I hope he lets the senior doctors speak, and I hope the doctors are intelligent and up to date with the current recommendations from the WHO.

The government also announced today the closing of all schools in Bangkok, but not nationwide, again this is uncalled for and is doing nothing but scaring people.

All the hundreds of thousands of students who will be out of school for a week starting tomorrow will now be going to clubs, cinemas, karaoke bars and booths and so forth where there is a much better chance of them contacting the H1N1 virus that they would have had from attending school.

There was a rumour, a rumour that the wearing of facemasks were going to be mandatory in Bangkok. I would for one be telling whoever to jam the mask so far up their arse you could pull it out of their mouth.

I am not taking this virus lightly, it has the potential to be dangerous but awareness is what is needed, not scaring people to death and making them so paranoid they run to a hospital if they cough or someone sneezes near them.

Brunty