The Rural Doctors Society (RDS) has completed its mission to help conduct Covid-19 mass testing on at least 50,000 people in 26 locations across Bangkok, Samut Prakan and Nakhon Pathom, with 10,357 people testing positive over the five-day period.
Rural doctors from around the country participated in the campaign alongside health workers who carried out active case finding using antigen test kits in communities scattered in the capital since last month.
The RDS updated information on its Facebook page about its third and last round of testing which began last Wednesday. They organised mass testing in 26 locations across Bangkok as well as Samut Prakan and Nakhon Pathom.
The testing ended yesterday.
Between Aug 4 and 8, the RDS found that 10,357 people out of the 96,087 it tested had contracted Covid-19. Of those infected, 9,790 underwent the RT-PCR test which returned infection-positive results.
According to the RDS, false results accounted for 0.55% of those tested while 70.2% exhibited few or no symptoms.
Some 27.3% suffered moderate symptoms and 2.5% were severe cases.
Of those tested, 4,792 were then given antiviral favipiravir tablets.
Rural Doctors Society chairman Supat Hasuwannakit said that in theory, keeping sufferers with mild symptoms in the home isolation programme and sending the medium and critical cases to hospital might work well.
However, sound management was lacking. The efficiency and speed with which the programme should move could not catch up with the rapid spread of the virus, he noted.
Given the severity of the Covid-19 situation, the government must quickly add an additional 100,000 beds in hospitals to tackle shortages.
Dr Supat also said the government must utilise enough people to conduct Covid-19 test as it helps remove the sick from those still healthy, which can keep the transmission in check.
Meanwhile, the Sen Dai (Thread) charity group, which assisted in helping Covid-19 sufferers get medical care, said the RDS played a significant part in making tests more widely available.
Thanadet Pengsuk, a co-founder of the group, said he has been told by the RDS that its doctors will return in the near future to offer tests again so the pandemic can be brought under control quickly.