The Directorate of Health does not recommend a health check when entering Norway

It is not necessary to check tourists entering the country for the Wuhan virus as the situation is now, says the Directorate of Health (Helsedirektoratet).

The main reason is that it can take up to two weeks from the time you are infected until you get symptoms.

“What is important now is to provide good information to travelers so that anyone who may be infected will contact the health service if they become ill,” says the Directorate of Health.

The Directorate is prepared in collaboration with the Institute of Public Health and in line with recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Body temperature checks
Several airports in Asia and countries with direct flights to the Chinese city of Wuhan have introduced scanners, which show the body temperature of passengers, to look for symptoms of the virus, such as fever. Such scanners led to the detection of the virus in Thailand and South Korea, and prompt treatment of patients, writes VG

However, the Institute of Public Health does not recommend such scanners at airports in Norway.

“These are measures that are expensive and inefficient,” informs doctor Trine Hessevik Pausen at the Public Health Institute of ABC News.

She points out that the scanners point out many “false positives,” which just have a common cold. This requires unnecessary follow-up, which is not cost-effective.

She further points out that there are no direct flights from Hubei Province to Norway.

130 deaths
So far no one in this country is believed to have the disease.

Anyone who has been in Wuhan or other parts of Hubei Province in recent weeks, or has been in close contact with anyone who has been there, is asked to contact a physician or emergency room if they experience a fever, cough, chest pain or breathing difficulties. In order to prevent the spread of the infection, those who become ill will be hospitalized.

The previously unknown Wuhan virus was first detected in December in the million-city of Wuhan, China. The virus can manifest as a mild cold, cause common flu symptoms, or have a serious fatal outcome.

Chinese researchers believe the lung virus may have infected people through a market in Wuhan where meat and wild animals have been sold illegally.

In China, 6,000 people have tested positive for the virus and 130 have died, while a small number of cases of infection have been detected in several countries. Outside China, at least 79 people have been infected.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today