As reported in yesterday’s story sourced from Tuoi Tre News, a Vietnamese man who had been suspected of having Ebola after returning to Viet Nam from Guinea a week ago, was actually diagnosed with malaria.  He has now fully recovered from this illness.  The information was officially confirmed by doctors at the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases of the Da Nang General Hospital on Monday. 

The Head of the Department, Dr Pham Ngoc Ham, remarked that 26-year-old Chu Van Chung is now in good health after 2 days of treatment.

Airport inspection staff involved in health quarantine are always on duty around the clock

Mr Chung said that he had not panicked when he had been isolated after being suspected of having Ebola because he was aware that the symptoms of his illness were different from those of the Ebola virus disease.  He said that people living in Guinea and other Ebola-hit West African countries have yet to be made fully aware of Ebola prevention and control measures, and they continue, for example, to bathe the highly infectious dead bodies because tradition demands it.  This has been blamed for the rapid spread of the deadly Ebola virus in these countries.

During Monday’s interview with reporter Thu Hoa from the Da Nang Newspaper, the Deputy Director of the city’s Department of Health, Mrs Ngo Thi Kim Yen, affirmed that the focus is on ensuring sufficient supplies of protective clothing, medicines and special equipment for all the local medical establishments to control the disease in case of an outbreak.  In addition, a super-dialysis machine and an extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) system, together valued at over 5 billion VND, will be supplied to the city’s General Hospital, which is responsible for accepting Ebola patients if there is an outbreak in the city.

According to the city’s Department of Health, the incubation period of the Ebola disease, the time interval from initial infection to the onset of symptoms, is from 2 to 21 days.  The patients become contagious once they begin to show symptoms and they are not contagious during the incubation period.  It is essential to wash hands with anti-bacterial soap and avoid close physical contact with those who are at high risk of the disease to reduce the risk of contracting and spreading the epidemic.