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Volume 15, Number 3—March 2009
Research

Capacity of Thailand to Contain an Emerging Influenza Pandemic

Weerasak Putthasri, Jongkol Lertiendumrong, Pornthip Chompook, Viroj Tangcharoensathien, and Richard CokerComments to Author 
Author affiliations: Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand (W. Putthasri, J. Lertiendumrong, P. Chompook, V. Tangcharoensathien); London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK (R. Coker)

Main Article

Table 1

Average available resources and estimated average resources needed for pandemic influenza control at province level and correlation of selected province data with province resources, 76 provinces, Thailand*

Selected resources Province resources available† (range) Province resources needed† Correlation with province resources
Population Population density GPP Poultry density
Hospitals‡ 14 (3–36) 15 0.129 −0.113 0.008 0.531
Health centers§
 133 (21–403)
 143
 0.327
 −0.270
 −0.143
 0.511
Infrastructure (no. beds)
Negative-pressure rooms (single bed) 13 (1–38) 13 0.482 −0.006 −0.096 0.331
Isolation beds 9 (1–117) 9 0.725¶ 0.812 0.261 −0.045
Single-occupancy room beds 158 (24–2,942) 158 0.785 0.880 0.206 −0.029
ICU beds 37 (4–605) 37 0.817 0.842 0.172 −0.044
General medicine beds 134 (6–1,301) 134 0.818 0.833 0.180 −0.004
Other beds (OB/GYN, surgical, etc.) 1,066 (90–4,377) 1,184 0.763 0.575 0.160 0.190
Child beds
 80 (21–814)
 80
 0.848
 0.832
 0.187
 −0.047
Personnel
SRRT personnel 202 (50–604) 223 0.580 −0.013 −0.100 0.325
Internal medicine doctors 43 (1–670) 44 0.817 0.834 0.180 0.005
Pediatricians 25 (1–336) 25 0.828 0.841 0.216 0.021
Radiologists 6 (0–117) 6 0.805 0.791 0.159 −0.010
Pathologists 9 (0–111) 9 0.617 0.571 0.114 0.331
Other physicians# 241 (32–2,229) 251 0.806 0.791 0.160 0.004
Critical care nurses 34 (0–535) 34 0.766 0.833 0.202 0.024
General nurses 1,219 (176–9,831) 1,284 0.919 0.832 0.187 0.091
Health officer in health center§ 322 (72–977) 345 0.363 −0.265 −0.209 0.444
Village health volunteer§
 10,424 (1,500–49,597)
 11,006
 0.442
 −0.218
 −0.296
 0.411
Materials
Ambulances 25 (8–79) 28 0.619 0.235 0.091 0.333
Patient transportation vehicles 96 (24–324) 104 0.521 −0.019 −0.123 0.259
Portable radiography machine 10 (3–100) 11 0.599 0.547 0.147 0.064
Adult (Bird’s and volume) respirator 90 (8–1,076) 96 0.850 0.803 0.228 0.082
Children’s volume respirator 24 (0–212) 25 0.596 0.514 0.175 0.165
Vital sign machine 280 (14–1,723) 302 0.560 0.250 −0.037 0.182
Oximeter 70 (4–813) 74 0.810 0.770 0.132 0.025
Disposable gowns 1,328 (93–17,249) 1,377 0.737 0.717 0.181 0.054
N95 masks 6,681 (1,247–27,721) 7,181 0.517 0.304 0.021 0.108
Surgical masks 16,031 (673–211,411) 16,440 0.349 0.472 −0.013 −0.080
Plastic face shields 541 (52–4,366) 567 0.349 0.092 −0.046 0.005
Goggles 919 (204–6,220) 961 0.643 0.550 0.199 0.044
Surgical gloves 64,757 (605–731,117) 66,201 0.583 0.456 −0.015 0.118
Surgical hats 9,558 (390–234,955) 9,861 0.843 0.865 0.178 0.100
Rapid test kit for influenza 544 (62–3,005) 576 0.366 0.267 −0.021 0.111
Swab bags 630 (0–10,901) 669 0.228 −0.028 −0.021 −0.001
Oseltamivir tablets 14,525 (1,290–60,110) 14,854 0.175 0.065 0.028 −0.072
Viral transport media 231 (35–818) 249 0.539 0.283 −0.014 0.159
Body bags 129 (0–1,050) 145 0.432 0.551 0.138 0.097
Lime (10-kg bags) 67 (0–1,008) 71 0.225 −0.051 −0.048 0.048
Chlorine (50-kg bags) 211 (0–10,121) 206 −0.071 0.079 0.067 −0.065
Sodium hypochlorite (1 L) 1,570 (0–50,190) 1,540 0.061 0.085 0.223 0.048

*GPP, gross provincial product; SRRT, surveillance and rapid response team; ICU, intensive care unit; OB/GYN, obstetricians/gynecologists. Data sources: Population and population density data are from the Department of Provincial Administration, 2007; GPP is from 2005 data from the National Economic and Social Development Board; poultry density was determined from the number of chickens and ducks in each province in 2006 from the Information and Statistics Group, Information Technology Centre, Department of Livestock Development, Bangkok, Thailand.
†Average. Missing district-level data are estimated.
‡Excludes private hospitals in Bangkok.
§Excludes data from Bangkok.
Boldface indicates that correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
#General practitioners, surgeons, OB/GYN, etc.

Main Article

Page created: December 07, 2010
Page updated: December 07, 2010
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