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Gaceta Sanitaria

Print version ISSN 0213-9111

Gac Sanit vol.32 n.3 Barcelona May./Jun. 2018  Epub Dec 07, 2020

https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gaceta.2017.06.009 

Letters to the Editor

Hotline for Zika virus

Línea de atención telefónica sobre el virus Zika

Beuy Jooba  *  , Viroj Wiwanitkitb 

a Sanitation 1 Medical Academic Center, Bangkok, Thailand

b Dr DY Patil University, India

Dear editor:

The publication Hotline for Zika virus1 is very interesting. Díaz-Menéndez et al.1 concluded that “The implementation of call devices that provide confirmed and reliable information on diseases associated with great alarm are of significant public health interest, as they reduce the number of unnecessary medical consultations and save on medical costs”. We would like to discuss and shares idea on this issue. In fact, the hotline advantage can be expected. Nevertheless, the availability of the phone in remoted rural area in several developing countries where Zika virus exists is limited and this can be the big limitation of using hotline service. Also, if there is a cost for calling, it might be a big problem for the poor in the rural community to assess the hotline service. In addition, the knowledge of the practitioners who give the consultation has to be checked and validated. Of interest, during the early phase of outbreak in our setting, Thailand, most of the medical personnel still lack for knowledge on disease and might not be able to give correct information to general people.2 Finally, an interesting problem that should be discussed is the system to prevent the nuisance calls which is a common problem observed in hotline service that is corresponding to the emerging disease3.

References

1. M. Díaz-Menéndez, F. de la Calle-Prieto, M. Arsuaga, et al. Línea de atención telefónica sobre virus Zika: experiencia de una unidad de medicina tropical y del viajero. Gac Sanit. (2017 Jun 20). pii: S0213-9111(17)30126-7 [ Links ]

2. S. Wiwanitkit, V. Wiwanitkit. Zika virus infection, do medical personnel know about the situation? Ann Trop Med Public Health., 9 (2016), pp. 361-362 [ Links ]

3. V. Wiwanitkit. Emergency calls for swine flu: how to deal with nuisance calls? J Emerg Med., 41 (2011), p. 676. [ Links ]

Funding: None.

Corresponding author: beuyjoob@hotmail.com (B. Joob).

Authorship contributions: Joob 50%, Wiwanitkit 50%.

Conflicts of interest: None.

Creative Commons License This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License