Illustrative image (Photo: Bangkok Post)Bangkok (NNT/VNA) - AsThailand battles its 5th wave of COVID-19 outbreaks, health authorities haveannounced they intend to manage the transition of COVID-19 into an endemic bydelaying its spread and switching to the use of ATKs as the frontline screeningmethod.
Public Health Ministry PermanentSecretary Kiatiphum Wongrajit said Thailand has entered the 3rd year of itsfight against COVID-19, which was initially predicted to be dealt with andcontained in manners similar to bird flu and SARS. However, the diseasedeveloped into a pandemic with recurring outbreaks, with Thailand havingexperienced large numbers of outbreaks from May to August of 2021.
Dr. Kiatiphum said that since then,vaccination has been rapidly undertaken and the country reopened to tourists asThailand planned to co-exist with COVID-19 in order to allow its economy toprogress. New infections have been dropping since, until the start of 2022 whenthe current wave resulting from a mutated coronavirus variant took hold.
Dr. Kiatiphum said public healthauthorities will be managing this wave of infections in a way that enablesCOVID-19 to transition into an endemic, as more people gain immunity.
Department of Medical SciencesDirector-General Supakit Sirilak said at present, COVID-19 is not causingsevere symptoms but transmissions are occurring more rapidly. This necessitatesa shift of the disease screening method from the time-consuming and expensiveRT-PCR test to the ATK (Antigen Test Kit) method, in order for resources to bebetter utilized.
Dr. Supakit added that billions ofbaht have been spent by the National Health Security Office (NHSO) on RT-PCRtests.
The director-general explained thatfrom now on, individuals suspected of being infected will be tested via the ATKmethod and entered into home isolation (HI) or community isolation (CI) if theytest positive and display mild or no symptoms of COVID-19. If symptomsincrease, the RT-PCR test will be applied and the individuals will enter thetreatment process.
Those testing negative but with ahistory of exposure to the virus are to self-quarantine and take an ATK testevery 3 days, or 2 days after the latest test if symptoms increase./.
VNA
