This does help to solve the problem described (add it to a new global system wide fonts conf file or to a custom user only place as described by fontconfig docs) - but having the thai package still there.
<match target="pattern"> <test qual="any" name="family" compare="eq"> <string>MS Sans Serif</string> <string>Microsoft Sans Serif</string> </test> <edit name="family" mode="append" binding="same"> <string>DejaVu Sans</string> </edit> </match>
This does help to solve the problem described (add it to a new global system wide fonts conf file or to a custom user only place as described by fontconfig docs) - but having the thai package still there.
<match target="pattern">
<test qual="any" name="family" compare="eq">
<string> MS Sans Serif</string>
<string> Microsoft Sans Serif</string>
</test>
<edit name="family" mode="append" binding="same">
<string> DejaVu Sans</string>
</edit>
</match>