Employees at the PetroVietnam building in HCMC wore masks at work Wednesday after an employee was found infected with the flu.

Offices and businesses in Ho Chi Minh City have beefed up measures against the spread of the influenza A (H1N1) virus as it appears to have picked up pace during the last several days.

One employee of PetroVietnam on Le Duan Street in the city s District 1 on Wednesday tested positive for the virus. The employee is said to have contracted the flu after returning home from overseas.

District heath officials have sterilized the fourth and fifth floors of the building where the employee usually works, and also begun monitoring around 30 employees who have had physical contact with the infected person about whom no further details have been released.

PetroVietnam has sent written instructions requiring its offices to have equipment to measure body temperatures and for all employees to be provided with medical face masks.

As the spread of influenza A (H1N1) in the city has reached the community-level, supermarkets such as Big C, Co.opMart and Citimart have asked their employees to visit doctors or take days off when they’ve got flu symptoms such as fever, cough and a sore throat.

Many employees at office buildings like Diamond Plaza, Sun Wah and Melinh Point in the city’s downtown have begun wearing face masks to and at work.

Authorities of Saigon Railway Station have sterilized the station facilities and coaches while ticket agents, guards and motorbike drivers that transport passengers to and from the station have started wearing medical masks.

But they said the success of preventive measures still depends on the cooperation of each passenger since they are not equipped with tools for measuring body temperatures.

“Saigon Railway Station has a very high risk of flu transmission,” said director Nguyen Thi Thanh Phuong, adding that the station receives an average of 10,000 passengers every day.

At the Mien Dong Bus Station where buses ferry people between HCMC and destinations in the country’s south, central and northern regions, many passengers now put on medical masks to protect themselves from the virus.

The HCMC Health Department said crowded places such as schools, industrial and export processing zones need constant supervision to prevent the spread of the flu.

The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday reported its first officer detected with H1N1 after coming home from overseas. The ministry has had frequently crowded sections at its headquarters sterilized and all employees there wear medical masks.

Also on Wednesday, the Vigracera building in Hanoi had to be sterilized as employee Chen Haowu of a Chinese telecommunications firm tested positive for the flu.

Haowu had traveled to Viettel Telecom headquarters in the capital for work last week and is suspected to have caught the virus there as a Viettel employee tested positive for the H1N1 virus on Sunday.

Five hundred employees of the telcom giant have been given medical masks following the discovery.

The Health Ministry on Wednesday confirmed a further 60 patients of influenza A (H1N1) nationwide, raising the country’s tally to 763 of whom 389 have recovered and been discharged from hospitals.

Among the new cases was the first patient in the southern beach city of Vung Tau, a student of the Nguyen Khuyen High School in HCMC who returned home last Saturday. The patient was admitted to the provincial hospital on Monday.

The Nguyen Khuyen School has been closed since last Thursday after several students caught the flu. The school on Tuesday reported 13 infections among students in HCMC.

The Hoang Hoa Tham and Thai Binh High Schools in HCMC on Wednesday temporarily shut down after one student from each school was found with the virus. The schools were holding extended courses for twelfth-graders who will have to attend college entrance exams at the end of their school year.

Dong Nai Province announced Wednesday three more H1N1 cases, including one student of Nguyen Khuyen High School and one of Ngo Thoi Nhiem High School - closed since July 19 as the first school in HCMC infected with H1N1.

The HCMC Pasteur Institute Wednesday sent Dong Nai health authorities a list of more than 50 students of the two schools that have returned home to the southern province for their summer vacation. Yet as of late Wednesday, the province had only managed to contact a little more than half the students, saying the addresses of others were hard to find.

Le Minh Hoang, director of Dong Nai Department of Education and Training, told a provincial meeting Wednesday that Dong Nai was not closing 53 schools due to the influenza A (H1N1) scare as several newspapers had reported earlier this week.

Hoang said most schools are closing as it is summer time, adding that 18 kindergartens in Xuan Loc District were shut down ahead of schedule as a precautionary measure against the flu.

At a meeting of the Health Ministry Wednesday, officials said they had finished composing documents to instruct teachers and students on fighting and preventing H1N1 infections.

Health Minister Nguyen Quoc Trieu said at the meeting that many people in the community were still indifferent about protecting themselves and others from the pandemic.

Trieu requested his subordinates to prepare more medical masks and medicines.

Source: TN, VNA