The Ministry of Health is liaising with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to strengthen supervision over the Ebola virus in Congo and assess the risk of the virus spreading to Viet Nam.

An International Health Quarantine Centre staff member checks arrivals’ body temperature. 

The Ebola virus has been confirmed in the Central African nation since April, with confirmed and suspected cases reaching 54 including 25 deaths, according to WHO figures on May 27.

The risk of the virus spreading into the country is low. However, there is the possibility of cases involving people entering the country from the affected region, the ministry’s Department of Preventive Health said on Monday.

To prevent a possible epidemic, the health ministry has directed provincial and municipal health departments to enhance supervision at border gates and in the community to detect suspected cases from epidemic areas and to develop adequate solutions, the online Vietnamplus reported.

The WHO has begun a vaccination campaign in Congo, using a stockpile of an experimental vaccine to fight the outbreak.

The WHO also convened an emergency committee to discuss the matter, assessing the Ebola epidemic in Congo to be at level 3, a high alert level.

Though the level indicates there is a high risk of the virus spreading to nearby countries, it is insufficient for WHO to announce an international public health emergency, Vietnamplus reported. The world health body also stressed that it was “particularly important there should be no international travel and trade restrictions”.

Ebola is one of the world’s most notorious diseases, being both highly infectious and extremely lethal as it spreads through contact with even a small amount of an infected person’s body fluid. – VNS