Thailand has added four more illnesses, Legionnaires’ disease, severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), RSV and shingles, to its list of notifiable diseases, meaning doctors and hospitals must now report every case to the Department of Disease Control.
The national communicable disease committee approved the draft notification on Friday, September 18, during its fifth meeting of the year, held at the Department of Disease Control within the Ministry of Public Health.
Public Health Minister Phatthana Phromphat chaired the meeting. Dr Monthian Khanasawat of the Department of Disease Control also attended, along with representatives from other agencies.
Placing an illness on the notifiable list requires clinicians to report every case they see. The Department of Disease Control uses this reporting to track how far and how quickly a disease is spreading.
The committee also reviewed a separate draft covering Thailand’s national immunisation programme. If approved, the measure would give the programme a formal legal footing and link vaccine records currently held across different parts of the health system.
Those records are kept separately by state hospitals inside and outside the Ministry of Public Health, by local authorities, and by private hospitals and clinics. The ministry has called on all providers, private ones in particular, to report vaccine doses through the national vaccine reporting system.
A subcommittee will be appointed to coordinate the work between the agencies involved.
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