The Ministry of Public Health has joined hands with the Department of Corrections and National Health Security Office to encourage safer practices among 260,000 prisoners countrywide by increasing measures to screen sexual and respiratory disease transmission, saying that the prisoners should have equal rights to medical treatment.
Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, the department's permanent secretary, said that the three parties are working together to promote and prevent communicable diseases in very crowded prisons nationwide. And that collaboration will be strengthened under the cooperative framework signed by the Department of Disease Control and the Department of Corrections.
The new guidelines focus on preventing transmission of diseases such as tuberculosis, syphilis, Aids, Hepatitis B and other respiratory diseases, including vaccination against influenza and Covid-19 disease and data-sharing management.
"We have many senior prisoners who run a high risk of catching a communicable disease in these overpopulated spaces. Healthcare management is very important to ensure that they have access to medical treatment. Our job has been to affirm the principle of equal rights, and the latest cooperative framework will address the issue in detail," he said.
However, Ayuth Sintoppan, chief of the Department of Corrections, said that Thailand's 266,339 prisoners, the second highest number in Asean, despite a carrying capacity of 200,000, had made the task of meeting international standards that much more of a challenge.
He also reported that there were 33 infectious outbreaks in prisons last year.