Thailand: the country's morgues overwhelmed by the influx of Covid-19 deaths
The Covid-19 pandemic is still affecting Thailand and Southeast Asia significantly (illustrative image).
© Sakchai Lalit / AP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
In Thailand, the Covid-19 epidemic continues to wreak havoc, so the country's mortuaries are overwhelmed.
Some even have to rent refrigerated containers to store the bodies.
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With our correspondent in Bangkok,
Carole Isoux
At the back of the morgue at Thammasat University Hospital, two large white containers contain several dozen bodies.
With the increase in mortality from the Covid-19 virus, autopsy requests have increased from doctors and families alike.
"
At
the shelter, heat, insects ...
"
The bodies are therefore kept before their autopsy but also after;
because, according to the director Paruhat Ton-Udon, the funeral services of the capital cannot keep pace with the deaths, and hospitals like his are now running out of space to keep the deceased: “
In these refrigerated containers, there, you see, we put the dead from Covid-19 and like that if there is a problem, a delay in picking up the bodies, which happens more and more often, well, they can stay there, they are at the shelter, heat, insects…
”.
Acceleration of the vaccination program
Thailand faces an average of 20,000 new daily infections and 200 deaths.
The vaccination program, which arrived too late to stem the wave of the Delta variant, has accelerated in recent weeks and the government hopes for an improvement in the epidemic situation from September.
►Also read: Thailand: the king frees 35,000 prisoners in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis
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