Thailand’s recently-established National Committee on New Infectious Diseases has convened its first meeting to lay out a four-step approach in preventing Ebola and other new diseases in the future.

Deputy Prime Minister Yongyuth Yutthawong, in his capacity as a chairperson of the committee, said that the meeting focuses on ways to tackle Ebola, including raising funds and supplying medical equipment to African countries infected with the disease, improving the capacity of medical staff and setting up more labs to run tests.

Two existing labs are located at the Department of Medical Science and Chulalongkorn University. Meanwhile, Siriraj, Ramathibodi, Mongkut Klao, Songkhla, Nakarin, Khonkaen, and Chiang Mai hospitals are already in the process of setting up facilities and human resources to deal with any outbreaks.

Other measures are seeking a 3 billion THB budget from the government to fund deadly disease prevention programmes and promoting regional cooperation in this fight.-VNA