Thai ports authority begins rat hunt to prevent disease

Thai ports authority begins rat hunt to prevent disease

BANGKOK (Reuter): Thailand's ports authority has begun a rat-
hunt in case plague-carrying rodents from India have fled ashore,
officials said yesterday.

Teams from the public health ministry set hundreds of baited
traps in port warehouses and tested rats caught in them for
evidence of the plague, which is carried by rat fleas, to prevent
the disease from spreading to this country.

"So far we have tested 79 rats but the results were negative,"
a medical controller told Reuters.

The medical teams also began spraying DDT to kill fleas in the
Port Authority of Thailand's (PAT) 37 warehouses, in a campaign
which will last for one month.

"Ship captains have to send telegrams to notify us about the
condition of their crews 24 hours before arrival," the medical
controller said.

As well as rigorous checks on all ships arriving from India,
vessels berthed at PAT facilities have to install rat guards on
mooring ropes.

In other efforts to prevent plague from spreading to Thailand
Thai Airways International canceled a scheduled flight to
Calcutta yesterday and said it was discussing the possible
suspension of other flights to India because of the outbreak
there.

"The management are seriously discussing whether to suspend
all regular flights," an official of the state-controlled airline
told Reuters by telephone.

Thai Airways has eight regular flights to India a week.

On Saturday the airline missed out the Delhi stop on a
scheduled flight to London.

In India 50 people have died of plague and more than 4,000
others have been hospitalized with plague-like symptoms since the
outbreak erupted last month.

Meanwhile, Myanmar's military junta has ordered that medical
teams check people coming from India for symptoms of plague at
Yangon Airport and other transit points, state-controlled radio
said.

Myanmar shares a long border with India, with thousands of
people crossing daily between the two countries, and has a large
minority population of ethnic Indians.

Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, powerful secretary number one of the
ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), ordered
the Public Health Ministry to set up the checkpoints following
the outbreak of plague in India, the radio said on Sunday night.