Lao Cai promotes efforts to deal with Zika virus

The provincial international medical quarantine centre has arranged body temperature scanners at border areas, particularly passengers coming from Zika virus hit countries, and high-risk groups.

Tran Duc Hung, vice director of the centre said there are over 2,000 travelers going through the Lao Cai international border gate a day, mostly Vietnamese and Chinese.

As part of efforts to contain diseases that may be caused by the virus, the centre has intensified environmental sanitation and quarantine work at border gates.

Medical quarantine teams at border gates across the province have also promoted publicity campaigns, in a bid to raise awareness of precautionary measures against the virus.

The Zika virus is mainly transmitted through the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which also carries dengue fever. The virus has been linked to microcephaly - a condition that causes babies to be born with unusually small heads and in the vast majority of cases, brain-damage. Currently, there is no vaccine or specific medicine to treat Zika.

It was first identified in Uganda in 1947 in rhesus monkeys. It was confirmed in humans five years later in Uganda and Tanzania.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recorded the most number of Zika virus cases in the Americas and Africa.

According to WHO, the Zika virus is spreading explosively. By January 19, 27 countries and territories worldwide had confirmed Zika infections.

Vietnam has no case of Zika infection so far.

The Ministry of Health recently issued guidance on diagnosis and treatment for the virus.

VNA