Today, this nasty virus is recognized around the world as a mass killer. Here in Thailand, thankfully, we’ve been spared the worst effects of the disease with a relatively small number of deaths (50+) compared to the US (61,656) and Spain (24,000) – and counting.
For now at least, COVID-19 is less deadly than Thailand’s long list of other killer diseases - cancer, malaria, dengue, hepatitis, measles, tuberculosis, Japanese encephalitis, rabies, leptospirosis, seasonal flu and HIV.
But there’s another disease that few people know about – and yet it’s responsible for up to 2,800 deaths a year. Called melioidosis, it’s the country’s third most-deadly infectious disease after AIDS and tuberculosis. The number of fatalities could be even higher, according to some reports, because of a lack of information about the disease.