Tan Son Nhat airport removes medical checks for visitors

Passengers passing through Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City will no longer need medical checks, starting from April 25, the municipal Department of Health stated.

According to the department, airlines have checked to ensure that all passengers have negative test results as per the Ministry of Health requirements before boarding the plane to Vietnam. "Therefore, when they arrive at the airport, there is no need to double-check."

The Southern Airport Authority requires airlines to continue notifying and assisting passengers in making medical declarations prior to boarding flights to Vietnam.

The moves came in the context of traffic jams at Tan Son Nhat, which has seen a daily average of 40 flights from overseas with 4,000-4,500 passengers.

Minister Nguyen Thanh Long on April 26 announced that medical declarations would be abolished soon, and the Department of Preventive Medicine is working on guidelines.

"Vietnam no longer uses epidemiological tracing and is returning to normal life," Long explained, "therefore it no longer requires domestic health declaration."

Medical declaration has been one of five simple yet successful epidemic prevention measures since the emergence of Covid-19. The remaining four measures include wearing a mask, disinfecting, distancing, and not gathering in big groups. This concept has been spread across the world in the last two years, not just in Vietnam.

The number of community infections in Vietnam has been sharply decreasing. On the evening of April 25, the Ministry of Health reported more than 8,270 new cases in 60 provinces and cities and five deaths.

The daily average of new infections in the past seven days is 10,936, down 45% compared to the figure of the previous seven days.