ASEAN to meet in Thailand to discuss Swine Flu

In order to take care of the Swine Flu threat, the Health Ministers of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries are scheduled to meet in Thailand on May 8. This was notified by the ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan through a press release issued by the ASEAN secretariat on Friday.

“Thailand will propose the idea of border and cross border surveillance, information exchange, stockpiles and production of vaccines,” the statement quoting Thai Public health Ministry said.

It was the Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen who proposed to hold this meeting after the swine flu had spread. In this meeting, the ASEAN public Health officials will discuss the swine flu issue with the Atlanta-based disease control centre.

It may be mentioned here that Southeast Asia was badly hit by earlier viral outbreaks of SARS in 2003 and the deadly human strain of bird flu in 2004.This meeting will show the unity of Asean in fighting this flu pandemic, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit said.

ASEAN includes Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, The Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar.