Thailand's H1N1 death toll jumps to 44

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Twenty people have died from contracting the H1N1 flu virus in Thailand in the past week, taking the death toll in the country to 44 since the epidemic broke out in April, the Public Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

That has prompted neighboring Cambodia to advise its citizens not to travel to Thailand.

"We call on the general public to delay traveling to Thailand if it's not necessary. But if they have to go, they need to comply with preventive measures by wearing masks and so on," Ly Sovann, deputy director of Cambodia's Communicable Disease Control Department, told Reuters.

No one has died from the flu in Cambodia. It has reported 14 H1N1 cases, mostly Western travelers coming in from Thailand.

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that the death toll around the world had risen to more than 700. Two weeks before it had put the total at 429.

Thai health officials said confirmed flu cases has risen to 6,776 Tuesday, of which some 35 were under close observation, with seven listed as being in a serious condition.

Last week the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration closed its 435 public schools for a week as it struggled to cope with the flu, giving it time to organize a clean-up of public premises.

Several hundred private cram schools in the Thai capital have also been asked by the authorities to shut down for a fortnight this month, and computer game shops patronized mostly by teenagers have been told to take protective hygiene measures.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told Thais Sunday not to panic over the rising death toll, but he said they may have to live with the fact the virus would be around for another 12 months.

In a public health bulletin issued Wednesday, the authorities said any Thais with fever or suspected of having the flu between now and December should take at least one week off work or school.

(Reporting by Chalathip Thirasoonthrakul in Bangkok and Ek Madra in Phnom Penh; Writing by Vithoon Amorn; Editing by Alan Raybould)