Thai Ministry Admits Errors in Tackling Swine Flu

This article reports that Thailand's Public Health Ministry has acknowledged that it made mistakes in its handling of the type-A (H1N1) flu outbreak, "admitting that it failed to deliver a clear message and left people confused about the preventive measures against the virus that claimed 191 lives."

The article describes a number of communication lapses:

• Since the H1N1 virus hit Thailand in May 2009, the ministry had consistently told people that the virus was no more virulent than the seasonal flu. As a result of this message, people reportedly became complacent, not understanding that - while in medical terms the ministry's message meant that the mortality rate with H1N1 was less than 1% - some ill people could die if infected. According to Dr. Kamnuan Ungchoosak, a senior health expert at the Disease Control Department, "next time we should tell the public that the virus is virulent rather than saying the virus is not virulent."
• The public did not trust the ministry after it reported that a group of Thai students, who had returned from Mexico, were free of the virus. However, laboratory tests showed they had contracted the new flu.
• The ministry failed to immediately report the first death to the public. (Kamnuan's explanation: "We came to know about it eight days after the patient had died at the private hospital.")
• The ministry vaunted the use of infrared thermal scanners to screen people with influenza-like illness at the country's main gateways; only later did it become clear that this strategy "was absolutely ineffective", per Kamnuan. He said the ministry's health experts had tried to inform the government that there was no need to use the thermal scanner, but the government wanted to reassure the public that it had done something concrete. However, the result was the opposite.
• When most people then panicked about H1N1, the ministry again sent "the wrong message" by urging those with suspicious symptoms to be tested to confirm the infection. Kamnuan said the ministry failed to tell the public - who flocked to hospitals for blood tests - that the lab test was only used for purposes of disease surveillance.
• The ministry failed to share information about the chances of fatality to high-risk groups such as pregnant women and people with obesity and chronic diseases. "Most of them died as a result of delayed treatment."
• Many people died from dengue fever or leptospirosis after doctors misdiagnosed them as having H1N1.

In these ways, Kamnuan admitted, "The ministry failed to create confidence among people over its measures against the flu outbreak and the people were confused by its messages to cope with the pandemic."