Many tour companies overseas have canceled their outbound trips to Thailand's southern island resort Phuket after reports on some foreign tourists being suspected of contracting Legionnaire's Disease, Thailand's English-language newspaper The Nation reported Thursday.
"Warnings have been sent to about 37 European countries that four foreign tourists came down with the disease after staying at a Phuket hotel," Deputy Governor of Phuket Province Worapoj Rattasema was quoted as saying Wednesday at a workshop attended by local public health officials on how to prevent and control the disease outbreak.
According to Phuket Gazette, the hotel in question was Phuket Grand Tropicana Hotel in Patong, one of the most popular beach in Phuket, where the infected tourists reportedly stayed during last November.
Legionnaire's Disease is caused by the waterborne Legionella bacteria, which could spread through water cooling systems, central air conditioning systems, fountains or humidifiers, medical experts said. The disease does not, however, spread through human-to-human contact.
In its most common form, symptoms of the disease, such as fever, headache, chills, chest pain and difficulty in breathing, appear between two and 10 days after exposure. However, it has not yet been confirmed whether the infected tourists were exposed to the disease at the hotel.
The Finnish Public Health institute reported on Jan. 9 that four tourists, including two Swedish, one Finnish and one Norwegian, were hospitalized with pneumonia, a common presentation of the Legionnaire's Disease.
It also reported that Finnish tour operator Aurinkomatkat has withdrawn all of its guests from the hotel.
Tests are still being conducted by the Phuket Provincial Health Office (PPHO), Ministry of Public Health and the World Health Organization.
Dr. Thawat Suntrajran, director-general of Thailand's Disease Control Department under the Public Health Ministry, assured tourists that authorities had ascertained that hotels in Phuket had hygienic water cooling systems, adding that the Legionnaire's Disease is so far not very threatening, not communicable between humans while easy to cure.
Thailand has never reported death cases of the disease by now, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency January 26, 2007)