The Public Health Ministry today assured of no risk of having the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or Mers disease spreading in the country after the country’s first and only Mers patient, a 75-year old man from Oman, has been cured from the disease and would return home tonight.
Public Health Minister Dr. Ratchata Ratchatanawin, together with the director of the Bamrasnaradura Infectious Diseases Institute, and the Omani ambassador to Thailand held a joint press conference to inform the public that MERS is no longer active in Thailand.
They went on to confirm that the Oman patient who has been treated at Bamrasnaradura Infectious Diseases Institute is now cured of the disease and that he has been able to breathe by himself for the past 5 days.
His five test results for the disease have also shown negative.
They affirmed that the former patient of Mers would no longer be able to spread the disease. At the same time, all three relatives of the patients were also tested free of the disease and showed no signs of having any of the symptoms.
Physicians have then released them from their care, as they have not shown any signs of illness for 10 consecutive days.
The Oman patient along with his relatives left the hospital earlier today and would leave for Oman from Suvarnabhumi International Airport at around 8 pm tonight.
Meanwhile, the 176 people who had been in close contact with the first Mers patient have also met their final observation date on July 2, where none have shown signs of symptoms either.
The ministry reaffirmed that Thailand is now free of Mers, as it no longer has any patient contracted with the disease and that there was not any spreading of the disease in the country. Nonetheless, Thailand would still have to report that it had only detected a Middle Eastern patient who was infected with the disease.