(VOVworld) – Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long on Thursday made a fact-finding visit to check precautions at Noi Bai international airport against the latest bird flu strain H7N9. 2 temperature scanners are currently in operation.

Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long makes a fact-finding visit to check precautions at Noi Bai international airport (Photo: VOV)

All passengers are being checked and so far no suspected cases have been found. Deputy Minister Long promised that the International Health Quarantine Center will work closely with police, customs officers, and animal quarantine officers at Noi Bai to measure the body temperature of all arriving passengers to detect infections and to build quarantine areas, stations to report health status, and a hotline to update influenza information.

Meanwhile Chinese agricultural officials have detected the H7N9 virus in pigeon samples collected at a marketplace in Shanghai. According to China’s Ministry of Agriculture, the virus found in the pigeons was determined by the national avian flu laboratory to be highly congenetic with that found in patients infected with H7N9 virus. Shanghai authorities on Thursday announced a death from H7N9, raising the number of deaths across China to 5. China so far has confirmed 14 cases of H7N9 infection, including 6 in Shanghai, 4 in Jiangsu, 3 in Zhejiang (including 1 death), and 1 in Anhui.