Thirty-three people of five different nationalities have been in quarantine at a hospital in the south-central Vietnamese province of Khanh Hoa over suspected infection of the novel coronavirus (nCoV), with roughly a third of them discharged by Thursday, according to the provincial health authorities.

The Khanh Hoa Department of Health said that the 33 people isolated at Khanh Hoa Hospital for Tropical Diseases include 15 Chinese nationals, 15 Vietnamese, one Russian, one Filipino, and one South Korean.

Among the 33 cases, 31 people have been quarantined since Monday or earlier, while a Chinese and a South Korean have been monitored since Tuesday.

As of Wednesday afternoon, test results from the Pasteur Institute of Nha Trang, the capital city of Khanh Hoa, showed that ten people among the 33 cases are negative.

Two other patients suffered from a flu caused by two old strains of the coronavirus, which are different from the new one responsible for the ongoing outbreak in China.

Nine other cases were infected with four seasonal influenza viruses.

The 12 remaining patients were still waiting for their test results by the end of Wednesday.

On Thursday morning, the health department of Khanh Hoa said that only ten patients remained in quarantine at Khanh Hoa Hospital for Tropical Diseases, including six Chinese and four Vietnamese.

Vietnam is among many countries with confirmed infected cases after a pneumonia outbreak, caused by nCoV - a new strain of the coronavirus family that also caused SARS and MERS, first surfaced in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.

The coronavirus epidemic has killed 170 people in China and infected more than 7,800 globally as of Thursday morning, according to Reuters.

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