Bangkok, Sep 9 (IANS): Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on Wednesday announced that he was elected as chair to the World Health Organization's Regional Committee for South-East Asia (SEARO).

Charnvirakul said that WHO's SEARO had elected him to the one-year-term post partly because Thailand had effectively controlled Covid-19, Xinhua news agency reported.

The committee would gather via teleconference call on September 10 and as the new chair, he would discuss regional health issues with a focus on stemming Covid-19, Charnvirakul said.

"All members want to reopen their skies to tourism so to reboot the economies mostly devastated by the pandemic, same with Thailand," said Anutin. "So I hope that I can share with ideas with the WHO SEARO, and hopefully we can unite and work on policies to ensure the safety of our people and return back to our normal lives."

Charnvirakul also said that he will be discussing about the progress of COVID-19 vaccine research with committee members.

Thailand had enjoyed 100 days free of local transmission until a new discovery of a local case was found in downtown Bangkok last week, which sparked a city-wide scare of a second wave of infections.