Health workers take samples of residents in Ha Loi village for coronavirus test

Earlier, on April 13 evening, three more Vietnamese people tested positive for COVID-19.

Among the new cases, two live in Ha Loi village, Hanoi’s Me Linh district. There are now 12 people with coronavirus connected to the village.

The 263rd patient is a female, 45, living in Ha Loi village. She showed signs of fever, sore throat and cough on March 25. Her sample was taken for testing on April 11.

A 24-year-old girl in the same village is the 264th patient. Her sample was taken on April 11 as part of a large scale test carried out for local residents after a number of cases were discovered in the village.

The two patients are being treated at the National Hospital for Tropical Disease No.2 in Hanoi’s Dong Anh district.

More than 11,000 residents have been locked down inside the village. More than 6,800 of them have tested for SARS-CoV-2 and are waiting for the results.

The 265th patient, 26, lives in the central province of Ha Tinh. He returned to Vietnam from Thailand on March 23 via the Cha Lo border gate in the neighbouring province of Quang Binh.

He was taken to a quarantine centre in Ha Tinh province right after returning to Vietnam. His sample tested positive for the virus on April 12. He is being treated at a local hospital in Ha Tinh.

To date, 146 patients, or 55 percent, have been given the all-clear.

The latest patient to leave hospital is a 74-year-old man from the UK who came to Vietnam with his wife last month. She also tested positive for the virus.

On March 27 while being treated at the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases, he suffered severe respiratory failure and was sent to the intensive care unit where he was put on a ventilator.

Doctors fought for a week as the man’s health deteriorated rapidly. By April 5, he started to respond to treatment and began breathing without oxygen therapy.

Both further tests for the virus taken on April 8 and 10 produced negative results.

The couple left Vietnam for the UK early on April 14 on a flight arranged by the British Government exclusively for British citizens.

Among the 265 COVID-19 cases, 160 returned from abroad, making up 60.4 percent of total, and 105 got the virus in the community, or 39.6 percent.

The total number of people who came or returned to Vietnam from pandemic-affected countries and territories and have been quarantined is 75,291. Of these, 713 are quarantined in hospitals, 15,564 are in quarantine centres and 59,014 at their homes.

Compiled by Le Ha

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