The Puea Thai party has called on Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai to resign, saying he had failed in his duty to control the outbreak of A(H1N1) influenza.
The disease has killed seven people and the number confirmed infections had soared to 2,272 on Monday.
Puea Thai spokesman Prompong Nopparit said the government was not doing its job properly. It was too concerned with its image.
"There will be an eighth H1N1-related fatality in the country and I'll put my job as the party spokesman at stake on that, because the disease is spreading everywhere," Mr Prompong said.
Sopon last week didn't call on the Minister to resign, but criticized the government:
The poor handling of the type-A (H1N1) flu, which has caused three deaths, does not inspire much confidence as the number of those infected also rises by almost a hundred cases daily.
BP: The question is, what more could the government have done? Should it close the borders? It should be noted that the World Health Organization does not recommend doing so:
WHO is not recommending travel restrictions related to the outbreak of the influenza A(H1N1) virus.
Then the question is on preventing the spread to Thailand and this needs to be weighed up on a cost-benefit analysis and to compare what other countries are doing. The idea of thermal scanners has been used in many other countries (ie Singapore and China). The scanners though don't pick up those people who are in the very early stages of the disease (ie presymptomatic) or don't have symptoms (ie. asymptomatic), but thermal scanners at the airport are likely to have initially helped in stopping the spread of the disease - those who had a fever were put in isolation - but it was inevitable that some presymptomatic or asymptomatic people would get through the thermal screening so the question then become on what to do to prevent the spread within Thailand.
The Thai government, like all governments, have been preparing for an avian influenza (H5N1) pandemic. Avian influenza had a very high mortality rate (more than 70%), but in almost all instances it was through animal-to-human contact. This meant the focus in rural areas where there were poultry. Thailand has an extensive village health volunteer (around 700,000 throughout the country) who have been looking at the villager community and educating them and those in district hospitals. There were all kinds of plans and protocols in place for this.
Then swine flu (H1N1) came along and caught most by surprise. Swine flu is spread mainly by human-to-human contact so this caused a shift in focus from rural areas to urban areas. Swine flu is spread so easily, but because of the low mortality rate so the various plans on social distancing (ie closing public transport, all schools, shutting offices etc) have not been implemented in full. Beside that and getting people to wash their hands there are limits to what the government can do - this is taken into account health resources in the country.
We also need to look at what is happening in other countries? As of July 6, there have been more deaths in Canada, United States, Australia, Chile, and Argentina (and of course Mexico) than in Thailand. There have been more confirmed cases in Canada, United States, Australia, Chile, Argentina, and the United Kingdom. Just look at the daily increases in a number of countries in the link above and you can see it is a worldwide problem.
The only criticism would be instead of airing these ridiculous ISOC sufficiency economy propaganda ads, why not provide practical guidelines to people on personal hygiene and urge all businesses and government offices to provide soap and/or alcohol-based hand sanitizers - much better than face masks in most instances? At least people will then be better prepared when in all likelihood wave 2 hits - this is usually when the higher mortality rate occurs. Aside from that, BP is unsure on what the Minister has done wrong or why he should resign.
In Thailand there is no consensus on anything at the politcal level. It is all about destroy at any cost and wreck the opponent at any cost. This does little good for the country.
The flu is something where consensual polics and opposition advice to a minister would work better.
The lack of consensus on anything is going to be a very damaging legacy for Thailand into the future when the current power struggle is resolved. Maybe as damaging as the now proven use of all kind of extra-parliamentary activities to ruin, intimidate or threaten opponents.
The damage that all sides have done to any notion of democracy, rights, balance and parliamentary procedure in Thailand is immense.
Of greater concern is the fact that the government has routinely delayed releasing details of confirmed H1N1 cases, including fatalities.
My question is more likely "What exactly Thai government has already done against H1N1 issue?". Because, frankly, I can't come up with any.
Setting up the temperature scanners at the airport? That should be somewhat standard procedure since before the flu outbreak (like it was in many countries).
In fact, the scanner once pickup high temperature from one of my friend, and all the official did is ask for his name and address then let him pass. There's no further examination if he really has H1N1. And this is from few months ago, when the flu still in the global extremely concern. No wonder why the number of infected went sky rocket now (today PM said the "real" number of infected might already hit 100 thousand).
Cost-benefit efficient or not, I really think the government should stop "talking", and start "working" on something.
Mr Thaksin's proxy Puea Thai Party are gleefully/opportunistically spreading a message of flu-fear.
In turn, their cynical message is being reinforced by Puea Thai's proxy (the reds) who have 'enjoyed' a successful campaign in the North/NE, fanning the flames of flu-fear, intimidatingly surrounding hospitals which the Health Minister visited and scaring the khrap out of patients and staff.
Not a wonder the Govt is forced to react to the fear-mongers message, including turning down a ridiculous request by some Chula doctors to close borders (one can only surmise Puea Thai/reds would have had the borders closed already if in charge?)
Recall 'Dr' Thaksin's reaction to bird flu which had a 70% fatality rate? Complete denial, followed by weeks of cover-ups, culminating in the usual 'side-show Bob' type farcical PR attempts. Given the records, most common sense folks would likely prefer 'Mark' over square-faced 'Frank' in charge of the flu outbreak.
No one said anything when PAD destroyed the nation's economy by occupying two airports in Bangkok.
Balance you are right in the opposition is being opportunistic the same as the Democrats were opportunistic with the temple issue when they were in opposition. That is the way of politics.
But.... as others have said I don't see the government doing much in the light of escalating numbers. We have has little actual government since the coup and all sides are struggling to bring down the other but with this government it seems that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. They want everyone to stop using Internet shops BUT go on holidays, what a contradiction.
In an epidemic/pandemic you want people to stay put so you can contain outbreaks. You need to restrict travel otherwise you are going to have a real problem on your hands.