The Official Letter of the Ministry of Health on the prevention and control of Covid-19 epidemic at production and business establishments

On August 12, 2021, the Ministry of Health issued the Official Letter No. 6565/BYT-MT on the prevention and control of the Covid-19 epidemic at production and business establishments.

Accordingly, in the past time, based on the guidelines and the local actual situation, a number of provinces have performed measures to prevent and control the epidemic with successful results such as Bac Ninh and Bac Giang provinces, which have built a plan to both prevent and control the epidemic and ensure production, such as "3 on-spot" or "one road, two destinations" forms of production. However, in some localities, the application of the same epidemic prevention and control model is not really effective due to many different subjective and objective reasons. In order for localities, enterprises, production and business establishments, industrial parks (hereinafter referred to as units) to actively implement measures to prevent and control the epidemic to ensure production and business; the Ministry of Health proposes the People's Committees of provinces and cities to:

- Based on the instructions of the National Steering Committee, the Ministry of Health and especially the assessment of the actual situation in the locality to guide units to develop appropriate and effective epidemic prevention plans.

- To direct the Management Board of the Industrial Parks, the People's Committee of the district and/or relevant agencies to agree on the plan and the measures for epidemic prevention and control of units in the area to ensure both the safety in the epidemic prevention and control and production and business and suitable to the actual situation in the locality and unit.

- To organize the inspection and supervision of the planning and implementation of epidemic prevention and control at units to avoid overlapping (not to allow the situation that many functional units inspect a business and production facility/ business) to take timely and effective measures to ensure support for units in production and business activities.

- To direct the performance of ensuring safety for the prevention and control of Covid-19 epidemic in the transportation of goods according to the instructions in the Official Letter No. 5753/BYT-MT dated July 19, 2021 and the Official Letter No. 5886/BYT-MT dated July 22, 2021 of the Ministry of Health ensuring no congestion and creating favorable conditions for the unit to transport goods.

- To direct the Department of Health to guide units to carry out screening and periodic testing for employees according to the instruction in the Decision No. 2787/QD-BYT dated June 5, 2021 of the Ministry of Health, specifically: weekly test for at least 20% of employees by RT-PCR method in pooled samples or rapid antigen test when there is no Covid-19 case; test at least 50% of workers when there is a case of Covid-19.

Source: Anh Duy