Thailand moves to add four diseases to national surveillance list

Public Health Minister Pattana Promphat said after chairing a meeting of the National Communicable Disease Committee at the Department of Disease Control (DDC) on Friday (September 18, 2026) that the panel had approved a draft Ministry of Public Health notification on the names and key symptoms of communicable diseases under surveillance.

The draft would add four diseases to the surveillance list:

• Legionnaires’ disease
• Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS)
• Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection
• Shingles

Pattana also said the meeting had resolved to end Ebola quarantine for people travelling from Uganda, while retaining quarantine for those travelling from, or with a history of travel from, DR Congo.

The World Health Organization (WHO) had assessed and confirmed that Uganda had recorded no new infections for 42 days, twice the 21-day incubation period.

Thailand had therefore decided to end quarantine requirements for travellers from Uganda in line with WHO advice.

“Thailand currently has about five or six travellers from Uganda in quarantine. They will remain there until they complete the 21-day period, after which no travellers from Uganda are expected to remain in quarantine. Thailand has not detected any cases,” Pattana said.

The committee also passed a resolution on linking vaccination data.

Although vaccination was being carried out on a large scale, relatively few reports had been submitted, particularly by private hospitals and clinics.

The resolution would be forwarded to relevant agencies, including the Department of Health Service Support (HSS), which oversees private healthcare facilities, to seek their cooperation and adjust regulations to provide for reporting.

“There are more than 10,000 service units, but reports on vaccine delivery have come from only about half. A substantial amount of vaccination is taking place, which is good, but little data is being reported. This could make future planning less accurate than it should be, so we need to seek cooperation on reporting and adjust working procedures,” Pattana said.

Dr Montien Kanasawat, director-general of DDC, said vaccination statistics were not yet being collected as effectively as they should be.

A review of vaccination data under the benefit package for children found that, of about 12,000 service units, only just over 5,000 had submitted data.

As a result, the data showed Thailand’s vaccination coverage as lower than it actually was.

The committee therefore resolved to establish a subcommittee specifically to manage the issue and use legal mechanisms to coordinate with all service units so they submit vaccination data to the Ministry of Public Health.

Key disease situations at home and abroad included respiratory infections.

COVID-19 and RSV infections were common among young children aged 0–4, while influenza was common among children aged 5–9.

People were urged to monitor symptoms regularly, maintain good hygiene and, if ill, avoid close contact with others, wear a face mask at all times, and undergo diagnostic testing or see a doctor.

For polio, although no cases had been found in Thailand, authorities continued to monitor the situation.

Most recently, an outbreak was detected in a neighbouring country in August 2026.

Parents and carers of children under one year old were therefore urged to ensure they received all scheduled vaccinations, to improve vaccine coverage particularly in border provinces.

For dengue, 25,948 cases and 39 deaths had been recorded this year. Major risk factors were underlying health conditions and delayed hospital treatment.

Anyone with a fever above 38.5 degrees Celsius lasting more than two days, together with headache, pain behind the eyes, a flushed face, thirst and signs of bleeding under the skin on the arms, legs and torso, was urged to go to hospital immediately and not buy and take medicine on their own.

For mpox, 338 cases and two deaths had been recorded this year.

People were urged to reduce risky behaviour, monitor themselves regularly, and seek testing promptly if they had suspicious symptoms or a history suggesting exposure risk.

Dr Wichan Boonkittikorn, director of DDC’s Division of Epidemiology, said the proposed addition of the four diseases followed a technical review conducted across several dimensions, which found them important to public health.

Their data therefore needed to be collected and managed systematically for presentation and for the development of additional measures, bringing all four into the process for designation as diseases under surveillance.

This would give Thailand data for analysis, helping it implement and formulate measures more effectively.

It would also serve as an alert to service units and doctors, encouraging greater vigilance and increased surveillance, while helping laboratories build their testing capacity so tests could be carried out more easily.

The disease-selection process followed clear criteria.

Several diseases were reviewed at the preliminary stage before the four were selected for submission at this stage.

The criteria covered public-health impact, the benefits expected from establishing a surveillance system and the need for additional measures.

All four had been screened by a panel of experts before being submitted to the National Communicable Disease Committee for endorsement.