Outbreak of Infectious Disease Among Military Conscripts in Thailand: A Summary of the Problem in Tropical Settings

Abstract

The problem of infectious disease outbreak is very important to public health. A crowded population is an important underlying risk contributing to an outbreak. In developing countries, a military conscript camp is usually crowded, and the problem of infectious disease outbreak is possible. Here, the authors would like to summarize and discuss the situation regarding outbreaks of infectious disease among military conscripts in Thailand, a tropical country in southeast Asia. The authors used the standard database search (PubMed and ThaiIndexMedicus) for seeking publications regarding the outbreak of infectious disease military conscripts in Thailand. According to the search, there are at least 3 reports on this topic (1-3). All outbreaks occurred at rural military conscript camps. Two outbreaks occurred in an army camp, and 1 outbreak occurred at a navy camp. Two outbreaks are due to the 2009 H1N1 influenza, and 1 outbreak is due to hepatitis A. All outbreaks could be successfully controlled by the local military hospital. Indeed, outbreaks among military conscripts can be seen elsewhere. Most of the problematic outbreaks are usually due to respiratory viral infections, especially influenza. Of interest in the present report, influenza is also the cause of outbreaks in most situations. This is similar to previous reports from non-tropical countries (4). It can be seen that there is no difference regarding types of infections and there is no specific tropical infection outbreak in our setting, despite its being one of the wellknown tropical countries.