The insects oozing out of a Lampang man's sores, which became a media sensation, were not a symptom of a mysterious skin disease but of the man's hallucinatory fits, the provincial public health office said yesterday.
Stressing that there was no clear video footage or evidence, they said doctors and nurses hadn't seen any more flies working their way out of the patient's body later and throughout his stay at Lampang Centre Hospital after he was transferred there on Thursday.
The man's lesions were also caused by his scratching himself, they said. Dr Sasithorn Yingseree, a psychiatrist at Lampang Centre Hospital, said the patient, now undergoing mental treatment, was fully cooperating with doctors but was concerned that what he had said before, which created a huge following, might be perceived as a lie. But he simply mouthed what he saw and was becoming stressed out due to the publicity, she said. The hospital then prohibited anyone unrelated to the treatment from visiting the patient.
The psychiatrists from Lampang Centre Hospital and Chiang Mai's Suan Prung Mental Hospital agreed that the patient had improved greatly after three days of medication. The man wasn't crazy nor incurable but only fantasised about bugs, due to long abuse of narcotics, she added.