First tourists' clinic opened in Thailand

NONTHABURI, THAILAND, December 25 (TNA) - The Department of Disease Control, under the Thai Ministry of Public Health, has opened the first Thai Travel Clinic at the Bamrasnaradura Infectious Disease Institute in Nonthaburi Province, next to Bangkok, before expanding to other Thai areas next year. The first clinic, which was opened on December 24, now provides Thai and foreign tourists with advice, examination, treatment and vaccines to protect them from possible infections in their destinations, with the vaccination service alone focused on protection from influenza and yellow fever. Advice given by the clinic should be useful for tourists because many of them may not have proper knowledge on some diseases. For example, travelers should not take any medication to prevent a malaria infection, but they should receive treatment after getting the disease instead. The department plans to open up to eight such clinics in other Thai areas, including Hat Yai of Songkhla Province in the Thai South, Chiang Mai Province in the Thai North and some other border provinces, by 2016. Over the next five years, global travelers are expected to exceed 1.6 billion, 6.5 per cent of them should be in Asia and the Pacific and 41.1 million of them should visit Thailand yearly. Over the past year, the department has given vaccines to 2,615 travelers, 2,552 of them are Thais and the rest are foreigners. (TNA)