Thailand

Thailand is located in southeast Asia. It is bounded to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the west by Myanmar, and to the south by Malaysia, and has long coastlines on the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. Once the powerful Kingdom of Siam, it is the only nation in the region that was never colonized by outside powers. Thailand is trying to find a balance between its rich cultural heritage and its rapidly industrializing economy. In 2006, the government was overthrown by a military junta, and there are ongoing reports of political repression and human rights violations against the people.

The population of Thailand is around 65,000,000 and is growing a rate of 0.663 percent annually. The birth rate is 13.73 per 1,000 and the death rate is 7.1 per 1,000. Median age is 32.4 years. Life expectancy is currently 70.24 years for males and 74.98 years for females. Gross national income is $2,750 per person, with 10 percent defined as living in poverty. Thailand has a well-devel-oped and diversified economy. Unemployment is just 2.1 percent. The Thai people can suffer from a wide variety of communicable disease, despite good access to clean water and sanitary facilities. There is a risk of bacterial diarrhea, viral hepatitis, dengue fever, malaria, Japanese encephalitis, plague, leptospirosis, and rabies. The prevalence rate for tuberculosis is 204 cases per 100,000. The country has a well-developed TB control program, and has a 85 percent cure rate for TB cases. With a thriving drug and sex trade, the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is 1.4 percent, with an estimated 580,000 cases, 220,000 of them women.

Non-communicable diseases are increasing as a major health threat for the Thai people, as the country is rapidly adopting a more “modern,” urban lifestyle. A 2000 survey found that 42 percent of people ate fast food regularly, and only 25 percent said they got regular exercise. In 1993, 23 percent of those over the age of 15 were daily smokers.

Thailand was one of the countries devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami in December 2004. In all, 1,940 Thai nationals were killed, 6,065 were injured, and 2,023 were declared missing. For several months after the tsunami, there were heightened rates of acute diarrhea, wound infections, food poisonings, pneumonia, malaria, and dengue fever in the region. Researchers found that the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was twice as high in children living in the six affected provinces than those who lived elsewhere in the country, and that the level of trauma had not gone down when the children were re-tested nine months later. Rates of anxiety and depression were elevated in the adult population as well.

Overall, child mortality rates in Thailand are low, with 18 deaths per 1,000 in infants, and 21 deaths per 1,000 in children under 5. Thai children have enjoyed much better health over the past decade. However, UNICEF estimates that more than 1 million children are in need of protection, either because they have been orphaned or abandoned, or are disabled.

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