Bangkok - Thailand's confirmed cases of the H1N1 swine-flu virus jumped to 106 Saturday, a five-fold leap in three days, health officials said. "Altogether 106 swine flu cases were confirmed today," Thai Health Minister Wittaya Kaewparadai said. "All of them are now being placed in special wards to prevent the virus from spreading," the minister told the Bangkok Post online news service.
As of Wednesday, Thailand had only 16 confirmed cases of H1N1.
With the cases initially limited to Bangkok, this week there have been reported cases of swine flu in popular Thai beach resorts such as Pattaya, Phuket and Songkhla. Two of the cases in Pattaya were Taiwanese tourists.
Thailand's health ministry has ordered the import of two million vaccine doses, anticipating that the new virus could swiftly infect thousands of Thais now that it has reached the human-to-human transmission level locally.
Thailand's first locally transmitted case of H1N1, a boy who had not travelled abroad recently, was detected Wednesday.
The country's current supply of oseltamivir anti-viral medication is enough to treat 420,000 people.
While the new virus was declared a pandemic level 6 by the World Health Organization (WHO) Thursday, Thai health authorities have been stressing the relatively mild threat posed by the new virus strain. There have been no reported deaths from H1N1 in Thailand yet.
This sentiment was echoed Friday by Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan.
"Social and economic activities should not be interrupted due to unnecessary travel and trade restrictions," Surin said in a statement issued by the Jakarta-based ASEAN secretariat.
He noted that while the WHO has raised the pandemic alert level from 5 to 6 for the H1N1 virus, making it the first pandemic of the 21st century, the decision reflected the geographic spread, rather than the severity of the disease.
"While some countries in the ASEAN region have already reported cases, some still have no cases to date," Surin said.
An ASEAN health ministers' special meeting on swine flu was held in Bangkok on May 7-8 to better coordinate the region's response to this pandemic.
An ASEAN stockpile of vaccines is available in Singapore, ready to be distributed to member countries in need. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Worldwide, there have been more than 27,700 cases in 74 countries and 141 deaths, nearly all in North America.
