More personnel and health equipment arrived at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport Monday to screen the temperatures of arriving overseas passengers

Vietnam is well fortified against the swine flu, the World Health Organization said Monday, amid rising fears of a global pandemic.

“WHO has requested all nations to intensify surveillance for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia,” a WHO statement said.

“The Vietnam Ministry of Health has responded quickly to this request.”

“Given previous experiences dealing with both avian influenza and SARS, Vietnam already has many surveillance and early detection mechanisms in place,” AFP quoted Shelaye Boothey, WHO’s communications officer in Hanoi, as saying.

In 2003, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), an often fatal flu-like disease, killed five people in Vietnam and nearly 800 worldwide.

The WHO held a meeting with Vietnamese health authorities and experts to discuss measures against a possible epidemic Monday. The body confirmed that there were not traces of the swine flu in Vietnam.

Vietnamese authorities and the local WHO office are collaborating with the health ministry to develop the best practices and protocols for laboratory diagnosis, quarantine, clinical case management, infection control and logistics specific to this situation, WHO Vietnam said Monday.

Vietnam would continue to beef up its health screenings at major international airports and borders, the Preventive Health and Environment Bureau said Monday.

More health quarantine staff and equipment have been dispatched to Vietnam’s two main international airports, Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City respectively, as well as to border checkpoints, to screen arriving passengers’ temperatures for any swine influenza symptoms, according to Bloomberg.

Passengers found to have higher than normal temperatures will be examined by a doctor for further swine flu symptoms. If deemed potentially infected, they will be sent to local hospitals for additional tests and quarantine, said Le Truong Giang, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Health Department.

Four of the city’s major hospitals – the Children’s Hospitals No. 1 and No. 2, the Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital, and the Hospital for Tropical Diseases – would be ready to treat any possible case of the swine flu, said Dr. Phan Van Nghiem from the city Health Department.

“We have been closely monitoring people, both Vietnamese and foreigners, entering the country, especially those from or having transited through epidemic-hit areas,” AFP quoted Le Truong Giang, deputy director of the HCMC Health Department.

The city Health Department also said it was preparing to deploy health screenings at the Saigon and Vung Tau ports.

Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport would be in close touch with the Hanoi Center for International Medicine Quarantine to keep a close watch on overseas passengers arriving in the capital city, said Dao Van Lien, the airport customs unit chief.

Consignments with origins in South America would come under special scrutiny, Lien said.

Around the world

In the first suspected swine flu case in the Middle East, a 26-year-old Israeli man has been hospitalized upon returning from Mexico on suspicion of contracting the potentially fatal strain, hospital officials told AFP on Sunday.

AFP also reported New Zealand Health Minister Tony Ryall as saying that 10 teenagers recently back from a trip to Mexico had tested positive for influenza and are “likely” to have contracted swine flu.

Health authorities in the central US state of Kansas confirmed two cases of swine flu on Saturday, bringing the total number of cases in the US to at least ten.

From December 2005 through February 2009, only 12 cases of swine flu were reported in the US. In 1988, a pregnant woman died after contact with sick pigs. In 1976, swine flu at US military base at Fort Dix, New Jersey killed one soldier. Four were hospitalized with pneumonia. At first, experts feared the strain was related to the Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed millions, but the strain never spread beyond the base.

Source: TN, Agencies