According to information from the Da Nang City Department of Health, in January, West Bengal state (India) recorded a cluster of Nipah virus infections in the Barasat/Kolkata area. The number of cases has increased from 2 to 5, mainly medical staff and about 100 close contacts are being isolated for monitoring.
Although the direct flight route from Ahmedabad (India) to Da Nang has been temporarily suspended, the health sector believes that the risk of the epidemic entering the city is still present. The virus may follow the flow of international passengers from India entering Vietnam through major airports such as Noi Bai, Tan Son Nhat and then moving domestically to Da Nang, or transiting through third countries.
With the characteristic of being a large tourism and economic center, Da Nang welcomes an average of 130 flights per day with about 23,000 international visitors.
To proactively cope, the Da Nang Department of Health has built 3 situations. Specifically:
- Situation 1 (No recorded cases): Focus on close monitoring at border gates, especially paying attention to people returning from epidemic areas within 14 days. Strengthen screening at medical examination and treatment facilities.
- Situation 2 (Appearance of invasive cases): Zoning and thoroughly handling outbreaks as soon as the first case is detected, not allowing spread to the community.
- Situation 3 (Epidemic spread in the community): Activate the entire rapid response system, zone widely, establish field hospitals and treatment facilities to minimize the mortality rate.
The Department of Health requests the City Center for Disease Control (CDC) and medical facilities to strengthen surveillance of people entering the country with suspected symptoms. Rapid response teams and mobile epidemic prevention teams must always be ready to depart.
At the same time, the health sector also assigned tasks to leading hospitals such as Da Nang Hospital and Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital to develop plans for admission, treatment, and prepare isolation areas and emergency vehicles, medicines to respond if an epidemic occurs.
The Department of Health recommends that people should not panic but need to proactively update official information, implement disease prevention measures according to the guidance of health agencies, especially when there is a schedule to travel to or from areas with epidemics.
