Thailand, Laos work out zoonosis prevention

MUKDAHAN, February 2 (TNA) - Thai health authorities in the northeastern Mukdahan Province and their Lao counterparts from Savannakhet Province on the opposite side of the Mekong River are working out, in Savannakhet, ways to prevent zoonoses. Mukdahan's deputy public health chief Dr. Apirak Samranwong has led a team of Thai health personnel, including nurses, to the workshop so that health personnel on both sides of the Mekong River can effectively cope with important zoonoses, namely influenzas, rabies, leptospirosis and other possible outbreaks. Savannakhet's deputy public health chief Dr. Bongsuwan Panthawongsa said today that health personnel of Savannakhet, Mukdahan and Vietnam's Quang Tri Province have always cooperated on disease probes and the personnel of Savannakhet are seriously developing their knowledge and cooperation to cope with zoonoses which may rise when a single community of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is established by 2015. The workshop on zoonoses receives financial support and lecturers from the UN-supported Kenan Institute Asia, the US Agency for International Development and leading educational institutes of Thailand. (TNA)