Overview of Conjunctivitis in Thailand

Conjunctivitis is an infectious disease of the eye which is very common in Thailand. The disease can spread widely and especially during the rainy season in Thailand. The authors performed a literature review on the reports of Conjunctivitis outbreak in Thailand in order to summarize the outbreak information. A literature review of the papers concerning Conjunctivitis outbreak in Thailand was performed using the database of published works cited in the Index Medicus and Science Citation index. The literature review focused mainly on all conjunctivitis outbreaks that have been published. The reported location of the outbreak in the literature usually occurred in central Thailand mostly in the capital city, Bangkok. Some outbreaks can be found in other parts of Thailand such as the Northeastern Thailand. The time of outbreak is usually around August which is around the rainy season in Thailand. There is no significant difference of the infection between male and female. The calculated overall mean age of patients is 16 years which is the school age. Conjunctivitis is a common eye infection caused by many kinds of organisms which is highly contagious and is able to spread just by contact. The disease is not severe and can be treated by topical antibiotics. However it is much wise to keep the infection from spreading by keeping the patients away from social for about a week.

Keywords: conjunctivitis, Thailand.