# 884
NOTE: THERE IS AN UPDATE TO THIS REPORT HERE
This is one of those stories I wish had more detail. It speaks of quarantining passengers and goods entering Vietnam from `bird flu-hit areas' but doesn't specify what areas. Vietnam, after all, is a `bird flu-hit area'.
Further down in the article in mentions thermal scanning, and the isolation of passengers with fevers, but isolation and quarantine are two different things.
Quarantine is for those who are not known to be infected, but may have been exposed, while isolation is for those believed to be ill.
Quarantining passengers based solely on their point of origin would seem to be a pretty drastic step. One has to wonder, in a country with human cases already and reportedly 13% of their waterfowl infected with the virus, what they hope to achieve by all of this?
I'm not sure if this is some over reaction on the part of the Vietnamese government, or if they know something we don't. Perhaps this is just bad reporting on the part of Xinhua News. Hopefully we'll get some answers to some pertinent questions soon.
How long do they plan to quarantine people? Do they really mean quarantine, or do they mean isolation of those with symptoms? Why institute this now? And are they prepared for other countries quarantining anyone flying out of Vietnam, because it is a bird flu-hit area?
Frankly, this story leaves us with more questions than answers.
Vietnam to quarantine passengers from bird flu-hit areas
2007-06-13 13:21:02
HANOI, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam will quarantine passengers from bird flu-hit areas entering the country at the airport of Ho Chi Minh city, local newspaper Youth reported Wednesday.
According to a plan issued on Tuesday by Ho Chi Minh city to prevent bird flu in the country, the International Medical Quarantine Center of the city will cooperate with airport Tan Son Nhat of the city to carry out the quarantine of passengers and goods, entering the country via airport Tan Son Nhat, from the areas hit by bird flu and other dangerous infectious diseases, so that these diseases would not come into the country.
Besides, the airport maintains measuring body temperature of passengers entering the country from the areas hit by dangerous infectious diseases. Once suspected patients are found, they will be adopted to the Tropical Disease Hospital of the city and be isolated properly.
Bird flu, starting to strike Vietnam in December 2003, has hit 16 Vietnamese cities and provinces nationwide since early May.
