The information was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam at a meeting of the National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control on Friday morning (March 6).
For convenience, passengers can make an electronic medical declaration before making their trip to Vietnam at http://suckhoetoandan.vn/khaiyte . The website has been developed by the Ministry of Health (MoH) in collaboration with other local tech companies to help the procedure be simpler and convenient for passengers.
This morning, the MoH also sent a dispatch to local authorities to direct their relevant agencies to apply the medical declaration to passengers on entry from or passing through countries in the European Union (EU) and Cambodia, starting from 0:00 tomorrow (March 7). The ministry requested for the arrangement of English and Khmer interpreters to work at border gates to smoothly support the medical declarations. When passengers show signs of Covid-19 infection, medical quarantine shall be applied as prescribed.
At the meeting, the Steering Committee discussed the mobilisation of the police force's facilities, in coordination with the army, to prepare more venues for concentrated isolation, including those for foreigners. In addition, Steering Committee members also agreed to deploy combined military and civilian medical teams to check and guide the medical isolation in enterprises.
The National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control gathers for a meeting on March 6, 2020. (Photo: VGP)
In the immediate future, the MoH will also issue detailed guidelines for hotels and accommodation facilities regarding concentrated isolation, as well as quarantines at businesses and factories.
* On the same day, the National Steering Committee also organised a training course on the diagnosis and treatment of Covid-19 for representatives from the local Departments of Health across the country.
As Vietnam has developed a scenario of 10,000 infected cases, with 10% having to use mechanical ventilation, the MoH proposed to purchase 100 ventilators to equip to 10 end-line hospitals. Provinces are also actively purchasing medical facilities in accordance with their anti-epidemic funding.
At the conference, medical experts offered expertise on infectious diseases and representatives from the Vinh Phuc Provincial Department of Health also shared their experiences in dealing with the Covid-19 epidemic in the province, which recorded 11 from the 16 confirmed cases in Vietnam so far, of whom have recovered and been discharged.
* As of March 6, Military Region 9 has received and isolated 602 people returning from Covid-19-hit countries at its military school located in Soc Trang Province. All isolation areas have been equipped with adequate medical facilities and necessities to ensure comfort for those in isolation.
The Military Region 9’s Covid-19 Prevention and Control Steering Committee visit citizens in a quarantine area managed by the Military Region 9 in Soc Trang Province. (Photo: NDO/Nguyen Phong)
* Also on Friday, the Dong Thap Provincial People's Committee unanimously agreed to extend the current school break to prevent Covid-19 for local students at kindergartens and primary and secondary schools (except for Grade 9 students) to March 14.
The Dong Thap Provincial Department of Education and Training was requested to direct local schools to continue cleaning and disinfecting classrooms and learning equipment to prepare to welcome back students after the break.
* As of March 5, although the number of Covid-19 infected cases in France continues to increase rapidly, there is no overseas Vietnamese in the country infected with the deadly virus. According to statistics, currently there are about 300,000 Vietnamese in France, including 7,000 students.
Following the direction from the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam on the prevention of the Covid-19 epidemic, the Vietnamese Embassy in France has assigned its functional units to assist Vietnamese citizens in the Covid-19 fight, as well as taking necessary measures to protect citizens when they are infected.
Facing the complicated situation of the epidemic in France, in recent days, the embassy has prepared disease prevention measures for Vietnamese citizens in France and has posted in relation to these on its website at https://ambassade-vietnam.com/3085-2 .
The Vietnamese Embassy in France has requested Vietnamese citizens to regularly check and follow the instructions of the host authorities, avoid attending crowded activities and to avoid the spread of unverified information about Covid-19 on social media.
In any case where assistance may be required, Vietnamese citizens should call the Vietnamese citizen protection hotline at +84 981 84 84 84 or the embassy’s citizen protection hotline at +01 44 14 64 44 or via email urgent@ambassade-vietnam.fr .
* On March 6, the MoH issued a decision allowing the Da Nang City Centre for Disease Control to perform diagnostic tests for the new coronavirus. The centre is capable of conducting 50-60 tests a day based on the application of the Realtime RT-PCR technique, which can issue results after four hours.
