Since the start of 2021, Thailand has continuously seen many clusters of COVID-19 infections in various areas, especially in the area of Bangkok Metropolis. Several clusters were reported in crowded community and slum areas where a large number of people live together and it is quite difficult to practice social distancing measure as well as other guidelines specified by the Government. Moreover, the rapid surge of COVID-19 infections this time was caused by the British variant of COVID-19 which is highly contagious and deadly, resulted in the increasing COVID-19 death toll. In this connection, Pol.Gen. Aswin Kwanmuang, Governor of Bangkok, has the idea to administer “Favipiravir” to treat COVID-19 patients who have not developed any symptoms or the green COVID-19 patients to curb the disease severity. This will prevent the patients from becoming “yellow” or “red” patients in the future, minimize the loss or death rate, and reduce current bed occupancy in ICU rooms. At present, there is not enough beds in ICU rooms for the red COVID-19 patients. The BMA has discussed this matter with medical experts from both public and private sectors.
Favipiravir will be administered reasonably and properly under close supervision of doctors so that this antiviral drug will be used worthily and avoid drug resistance by the virus in the future. The drug will be used as a clinical trial in the group of green COVID-19 patients who never have symptoms (asymptomatic) and do not have any risk factors or risk conditions. The patients will be selected among those who have higher amount of virus in their body than other people. The result of drug administration will be compared to see the percentage of patients who develop severe symptoms and change from “green” to “yellow” or “red” cases. The conclusion will be used as a guideline for drug administration in the next phase. The most important thing is that the green COVID-19 patients must give their voluntary informed consent for treatment.
Besides physical care and treatment, the BMA also gives great importance to the caring of mental health for all COVID-19 patients. Patients who have been admitted to the hospitals, field hospitals, and hospitels under the BMA will have stress appraisals before admitting to the hospital and during their stay in hospitals. If the stress level of patients becomes higher, they will receive psychological counselling service via phone or LINE Application by a team of psychiatrists from the BMA Medical Service Department for 24 hours. After the psychological counselling service, if the patients still have severe and uncontrollable stress, the BMA will consider transferring them to the main hospital. The BMA medical personnel can also use counselling service provided by a team of psychiatrists from the BMA Medical Service Department if they are feeling anxious or stressed.
