Immigration authorities have defended hygiene standards at detention centres for illegal Uighur immigrants following the death of a child.
A three-year-old Uighur boy was pronounced dead of suspected tuberculosis at Hat Yai Hospital on Monday. He was treated there for one month, after being transferred from Padangbesar Hospital, where he was taken from a border checkpoint camp.
Pol Maj Gen Thatchai Pitaneelaboot, commander of Immigration Division 6, said the boy probably contracted the infection before he entered Thailand.
"Staff conduct routine hygiene inspections and the detention areas are not overcrowded. They can accommodate about 300 people but only around 100 are being kept there," Pol Maj Gen Thatchai said.
The boy was one of 21 children from a group of 131 suspected Uighur immigrants detained at Sadao and Padangbesar checkpoints in Songkhla earlier this year.
"The temporary detention centres in Sadao and Padangbesar have been used to house other illegal immigrants, including Rohingya people, and there were no TB infections," Pol Maj Gen Thatchai said.
"As soon as we found out infections had developed, we separated the potential sufferers from the main group and gave them medicine, but many did not follow the dosage recommendations," Pol Maj Gen Thatchai said. "If thee medication is not working, we quickly send patients to Padangbesar Hospital."
Yala Hospital representative Anantachai Thaipratan said nine people had been separated from the main detention cell, but doctors have only confirmed five cases of TB.
"It is difficult to make a diagnosis until a spinal fluid check confirms TB. The International Organisation for Migration has sent a mobile X-ray machine to check all the immigrants at the two checkpoints," said Dr Anantachai, who inspected the border camps.