The Public Health Ministry reported yesterday that two more people had been killed by type-A (H1N1) virus over the past seven days, bring the number of total deaths to 184.
The latest victims are a woman who was nine months into her pregnancy and one who weighed 189 kilograms.
"The 33-year-old pregnant woman died due to a delay in treatment," the ministry's permanent secretary Dr Paijit Warajit said.
In order to avoid such mistakes from recurring, the ministry will revise its medical guideline - making the new one shorter and easier to understand so medical workers can provide proper treatment.
In order to handle the second wave of the pandemic, the Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai said his ministry had teamed up with the Education Ministry to persuade medical students nationwide to raise public awareness about flu prevention.
To ensure that the country has enough of a stockpile of the second-line antiviral drug for the second pandemic, the Public Health Ministry said yesterday that it will purchase 50,000 more courses of the Zanamivir anti-viral drug, bringing the total number of courses in the stockpile to 100,000. It already has 12 million tablets of oseltamivir, which should be enough for 1.2 million patients.
"The new lot will be distributed to state hospitals nationwide even though the virus has shown no signs of mutation. We have to make sure that we have enough doses for patients who develop flu-like symptoms caused by the oseltamivir-resistant version of the virus," Paijit said.
So far Thailand has 50,000 courses of Zanamivir in the form of inhalers in case the virus becomes resistant to oseltamivir, which is in stockpile at state hospitals across the country. If the Public Health Ministry's proposal to purchase more 50,000 courses of Zanamivir is approved, Thailand will have enough drugs to save at least 100,000 lives.
Paijit added that the ministry had also instructed state hospitals across the country to get their intensive care units and respiratory devices ready to treat patients.