Health ministry orders tight medical quarantine controls at border gates

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Medical quarantine at Huu Nghi International Border Gate in Lang Son province (Photo: baolangson.vn)

In a document sent to the International Health Quarantine Centre, the Centre for Disease Control and preventive health centres in cities and provinces, the Department ordered them to strictly follow medical quarantine procedures as stipulated in Government Decree No.89/ND-CP dated June 25, 2018 detailing the Law on Infectious Disease Prevention and Control.

Accordingly, medical staff should enhance checks on travellers, vehicles and commodities passing through border gates in order to early detect and isolate suspected cases. They have also been asked to work with authorities at border gates to monitor smuggled poultry products without clear origin and take preventive measures to stop such goods from entering the country.

Furthermore, communication efforts at border gates must be deployed to raise public awareness of dangerous and emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola in Congo, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) in several Middle East countries, poliomyelitis in the Philippines, Myanmar and China, yellow fever in some South American and African countries, and most recently severe pneumonia with undetermined causes in China.

More efforts are also needed to provide advice on preventive measures for people who come from disease-prone areas./.

VNA