Risk management in repatriation flight, and state-ordered quarantine for COVID-19 of Thai nationals relocated from Wuhan, China

Abstract

          The COVID-19 epidemic that became very serious in China and subsequently expanded globally. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the public health emergency of international concern. on February 4, 2020, the Thai government relocated Thai nationals who were living in Wuhan, China which was the center of the outbreak. The risk management of the repatriation flight, medical surveillance and state quarantine planning focused on the safety of the medical teams, staff, Thai people and nearby communities.The purpose of this descriptive study is to determine risk management in the relocated Thai nationals before, during, and after traveling from Wuhan, including state quarantine continued in Thailand during February 4-18, 2020. Data was collected from reports of performance, meeting minute, records, screening and surveillance. The data was analyzed in terms of four risk management steps: risk identification, risk assessment, risk control and impact assessment.

          The results showed the risk management was conducted in three phases 1) First, the Chinese government screened Thai nationals for COVID-19 and checked their relevant travel documents (138 out of 141 passed the screening phase). 2) The Thai medical team flew to Wuhan and screened the immigrants for COVID-19 before they boarded the plane to Thailand including COVID-19 surveillance during return on travelling a flight. 3) On landing in Thailand, the immigrants were quarantined under surveillance for 14 days. With regards to the four risk management steps, 1) Risk identification focused on situation, knowledge, outbreak, symptoms and prevention control. 2) Risk assessment identified sources of risk, including problems and obstacles that may increase the risk. 3) Risk control involved processes such as screening, surveillance, treatment, vehicle cleaning, environmental management and infectious waste. 4) The impact assessment was 138 of Thai immigrants (out of 141) that they were average age between 6 months to 53-years-old. As the four patients (2.90%) were warranted further investigation and one case (0.72%) of COVID-19 was confirmed that no fever, but who had respiratory symptoms. Therefore, the immigrants who came from a risk countries must be COVID-19 investigation by using the laboratory. And all the medical teams and related staffs must recheck the guidelines to clients throughout the operations.