Persons who enter Vietnam from Congo – a new Ebola-hit nation – as from 3pm of August 27, are required to make medical declaration in order to prevent the deadly virus from approaching Vietnam.

The move was instructed by the Preventive Medicine Department in a dispatch sent on August 27 to health departments of provinces and cities across the country.

The document quoted an announcement of the World Health Organisation on August 26 that Congo had reported a total of 24 suspected Ebola cases, including 13 deaths, of whom four later tested positive to the virus.

From August 15, medical declaration has been applied to those entering Vietnam from the four West African countries of Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria, where nearly 1,500 deaths from Ebola have been recorded so far.

Vietnam has no reported cases of Ebola infections by now.

Ebola is spreading through the exchange of bodily fluids, such as sweat and blood, between infected and non-infected persons. Currently, no cure or vaccine is available, according to the World Health Organisation.

VNA/VNN