Dr. Praj Boonyawongvirot, Permanent Secretary for Public Health, said his ministry had received notification from WHO that the UN agency had decided to award a certificate to Thailand for achievement in giving necessary vaccines to children which could reduce the deaths among them.
According to WHO, there are still about 27 million of children throughout the world that have not received necessary vaccines and more than two million of them die yearly.
WHO and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund have recommended that Thai children should receive a BCG vaccine inoculation to prevent tuberculosis, three DPT vaccines to prevent diphtheria, three vaccinations preventing polio and a vaccine for measles. The vaccinations must be given to children before they reach one year old.
Meanwhile, Dr. Thawat Suntrajarn, Director-General of the Disease Control Department, said surveys were conducted and found that no Thai children aged below five had contracted polio in the past 10 years.
But Thai children still must use the vaccine because they could receive disease from foreigners migrating to Thailand, Dr. Thawat said, adding that most of the migrating foreigners had not received proper vaccines against these diseases. (TNA)
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