From smartphones to clinics: What Indonesia can learn from Thailand’s disease tracking

The COVID‑19 pandemic accelerated investment in health infrastructure across Southeast Asia, including Indonesia and Thailand. Indonesia built over 600 COVID-19 testing labs between 2020 and 2021, expanded telehealth services, and introduced digital platforms to monitor diseases. However, these improvements were concentrated in urban areas, while many remote regions remains underdeveloped. Thailand took a different approach. Alongside establishing more than 10,000 COVID-19 labs, it developed an…