Health requirements for entry to Vietnam
From: rowens@uga.edu <rowens@uga.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 7:06 AM
I am in the process of getting a medical clearance to do research in Vietnam and I can't find any specific health requirements. I am getting a Tb test as well as an overall physical, but are there other requirements such as getting a HIV test? I just wanted to check with the collective group for anything might have missed.
-Rich
-----------------------------
Richard Owens, doctoral student
Department of Anthropology
Baldwin Hall
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
rowens@uga.edu
--------
From: Martha Lincoln <martha.lincoln@gmail.com>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 8:55 AM
Hi Richard,
Re: your query, assume you have looked at the US CDC site?
http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/destinationVietnam.aspx
Also if you need to see a travel physician, check this link:
http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/contentTravelClinics.aspx
Regarding requirements on the Vietnamese side, I do not know of any,
but I haven't traveled to VN yet. Do others have advice?
Martha Lincoln
--------
From: Michele Thompson <thompson.michele@sbcglobal.net>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 9:11 AM
Dear Rich,
Unless you are coming from an area where yellow fever is endemic there are no requirements from the Vietnamese side. The best thing you can do is go to a good travel clinic and tell them just where you will be traveling within Vietnam-for example there is no malaria in the Red River Delta area so you don't need malaria prophylaxis if you are only going to be there. In some other areas you should have it. These are recommendations not requirements.
Most large medical schools have such clinics and most large cities have more than one. I'm sure Atlanta has several even if Athens does not. So look one up and tell them where you will be going to your best knowledge.
Innoculations are expensive but they may be covered by the terms of a grant if you have one, or by your medical insurance as long as they are prescribed by a doctor, and in any case if your are traveling for professional purposes they are tax deductible.
cheers
Michele
Michele Thompson
Dept. of History
Southern Connecticut State University
--------
From: jkirk <jkirk@spro.net>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 9:56 AM
In January I traveled in Vietnam with a tour, and was never asked
to show my yellow vaccination card on entry, nor asked anything
about my health.
Joanna Kirkpatrick
-----Original Message-----
From: vsg-bounces@mailman1.u.washington.edu
[mailto:vsg-bounces@mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of
Martha Lincoln
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 9:56 AM
..........Regarding requirements on the Vietnamese side, I do not
know of any, but I haven't traveled to VN yet. Do others have
advice?
Martha Lincoln
--------
From: jkirk <jkirk@spro.net>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 10:08 AM
PS--For proaction with respect to travel in Vietnam, I had the tetanus and Hep A injection updates at my local state health department It wasn't expensive; that was it.
I've spent many a month and a couple of years (not serially) in south Asia doing fieldwork, and always used a mosquito net at night, combined with Deet on hands, arms, neck, face and feet during the daytime, plus impregnating my net before departure by spraying it, drying it in the air before folding and packing it. I once took the old kind of malaria med in the sixties, but stopped halfway through and never used any anti-malaria med again. I never got malaria. Maybe just lucky, but a lot of people I knew were careless about mosquito protection while living in Asia.
Now that avian flu has hit some of the irrigation farming states of the west, we may eventually have to use Deet & mosquito nets at night here, too.
Joanna K.
--------
From: rowens@uga.edu <rowens@uga.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 10:58 AM
Hi Martha,
Thank you, for the information. I have all the vaccinations I need to go safely into VN and my physical exam will cover me for being admition into VN for a year long study. I wasn't sure if I needed to have any paperwork for say an HIV test to be accepted into VN. I did need to get a Tb test for instance.
-RIch
--------
From: Rob Hurle <rob@coombs.anu.edu.au>
Reply-To: rob@coombs.anu.edu.au, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 6:19 PM
I'm in Vietnam now. On entry you have to answer the following question:
"Do you have any of the following symptoms: fever, cough, dyspnea,
diarrhea, nauseous feeling and jaundice?"
I think they are looking for Yellow Fever, but some questions are left
over from SARS days. There's an (inoperative) IR camera they can use
to look at you on the way in, but I've never seen it in use.
Cheers,
Rob Hurle
[Quoted text hidden]--
Rob Hurle
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU
e-mail: rob@coombs.anu.edu.au
Mobile (in VN): +84 948 243 538
Mobile (in OZ): +61 417 293 603
--------
From: jkirk <jkirk@spro.net>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: rob@coombs.anu.edu.au, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 9:33 PM
Any idea why they didn't ask me any of those questions on entry?
Or does it depend on what kind of a visa you have?
Joanna K.
--------
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 10:12 PM
Dear list,
Just one note. Yes, look at the CDC site as suggested. There are mandatory requirements as well as ones that are not mandatory. Given the cost of, for example, Japanese encephalitis vaccines in the US, which is not mandatory for entering Vietnam, I'd wait till arriving in Vietnam to get that one IF you need it.
The question about diarrhea is because there have been cholera outbreaks (dich ta) in the north. A cholera case (or more?) has also been reported in the south.
There have also been numerous cases of dengue fever, but there is no vaccine, as far as I know, for that.
The Vietnamese public health authorities seem quite competent about such matters and do not, like some countries, try to hide the outbreak of disease.
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History and International Affairs
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(on leave, 2007-08, at Vietnam National University --
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)
--------
From: Michele Thompson <thompson.michele@sbcglobal.net>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 4:59 AM
Dear Everyone,
My experience is that they don't actually ask you, as in a person questioning you, but these questions are on part of the forms you fill out to go through customs and immigration. They are pretty standard and pretty much the same questions appear on the documents you fill out to enter a lot of countries.
cheers
Michele
Michele Thompson
Dept. of History
Southern Connecticut State University
--------
From: Michele Thompson <thompson.michele@sbcglobal.net>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 5:05 AM
Dear Everyone,
There have been a lot of cholera cases recently and there was a big outbreak pretty much all over the country last November and December.
There is no vaccine for dengue.
Shawn is right about the Vietnamese attitude towards these public health issues.
People might try subscribing to Vern Weitzel's Health Vietnam list if you want to keep up with things like outbreaks of specific diseases.
cheers
Michele
Michele Thompson
Dept. of History
Southern Connecticut State University
--------