City Hall is on full alert for monkeypox infections in at-risk areas in the capital, including locations where foreign tourists gather in large numbers.
Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt on Monday called a meeting of City Hall executives to discuss preparations for monkeypox infections after the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Saturday declared monkeypox as "A Public Health Emergency of International Concern".
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Chadchart said that public health personnel will be educated about the disease while health service centres, clinics and hospitals in Bangkok will be instructed to watch out for anyone suspected of contracting the disease.
The Thai Hotels Association will also be asked to tell all hotels in Bangkok to look out for and report suspected cases to City Hall's district offices, Mr Chadchart said.
Pharmacies in the capital will also be asked to do the same, he said.
"No cases of monkeypox have been reported in Bangkok yet," Mr Chadchart said.
"However, a close watch is being kept on at-risk communities, such as in Soi Nana where Nigerian nationals gather."
The Ministry of Public Health on Sunday raised surveillance measures nationwide in response to the WHO's announcement.
This came after the detection of the first confirmed case in the country, a Nigerian tourist who fled to neighbouring Cambodia after he was found to have the disease before being detained there.
Pol Col Rung Thongmon, chief of the immigration office in Sa Kaeo, said that Cambodian authorities told him that the Nigerian man is being treated for monkeypox in a hospital in Phnom Penh.
After he recovers, he will be indicted in a Cambodian court for illegal entry, Pol Col Rung said.
Meanwhile, tracing of the Nigerian man's close contacts in Phuket where he stayed for the past month continues.
The province's health chief Koosak Kukiatikul said on Monday that investigators were involved in active case finding on the island.
Dr Supakit Sirilak, director-general of the Department of Medical Sciences, said on Monday that tests conducted on 27 people who came into close contact with the Nigerian tourist came back negative.
Dr Supakit also said that under the Animals' Pathogens and Toxins Act, only biosafety level-3 laboratories are allowed to conduct testing for monkeypox.
However, the department will ask Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul to approve a new announcement which will allow level-2 laboratories to conduct testing, though these laboratories will be required to take additional precautionary measures, he said.
With the ministry's approval, most of the laboratories nationwide, which are at Level 2, can conduct testing, though their testing capabilities will be checked by the department first, Dr Supakit said.
He also denied a report that certain strains of monkeypox could spread through the air while adding that Covid-19 precautions such as frequent hand-washing, and maintaining physical distance, can also be applied to prevent monkeypox transmissions.
Government spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said on Monday that despite no additional detection of infections linked to the case of the Nigerian national, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has still instructed the Public Health Ministry and related agencies to be on high alert.
In particular, the Immigration Bureau was ordered to keep an eye out for arrivals from at-risk countries, Mr Thanakorn said.
Dr Yong Poovorawan, head of the Center of Excellence in Clinical Virology at the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, on Monday posted on Facebook that monkeypox is not a serious disease, with a fatality rate of less than 3:10,000.
The disease is transmitted through close contact, so it is likely to be passed on during sex, he posted.
"Any disease that is transmitted through contact during sex is hard to control or eliminate, and so is monkeypox," Dr Yong posted. "The only way is to administer effective vaccines to as many people as possible. We will have to continue to live with this disease."
