Mid-East visitors face health check in Vietnam
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Vietnam's Ministry of Health will require all passengers entering Vietnam from nine Middle East countries to fill in a medical declaration form at airports from July 1.
This is part of the measures to cope with the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) that has caused an increasing number of fatalities around the world.
Deputy Head of the ministry’s Department of Preventive Medicine Tran Dac Phu said at an online meeting on disease prevention and control yesterday that there was a high risk the coronavirus could enter Vietnam from the Middle East.
He said Vietnam was so far free of the disease. The declaration form will apply to those arriving from Saudi Arabia, Qata, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan and Iran.
The forms will be available at Vietnam’s three international airports, Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City, Noi Bai in Hanoi and Da Nang.
Centres for health quarantine in the three cities will distribute the forms to passengers from the Middle East.
Health quarantine staff will examine the declaration forms. If any passenger has fever, is coughing or has breathing difficulties, health workers will request them to stay in isolation.
According to the World Health Organisation statistics, by June 16 about 700 people from 22 Middle East nations had been diagnosed with MERS-CoV, which has claimed 249 lives so far.
