A patient at an infirmary in Ho Chi Minh City has allegedly spread the H1N1 virus to 16 people, including hospital staff, and caused many dozen others to be quarantined.

On Friday doctors found a woman running a high fever accompanied by bodily pain while she was visiting the Tu Du Hospital, a major maternity institution in Vietnam, for a surgery in the gynecological department.

She was discharged due to ill health for the operation, and later on the same day there were 23 cases of patients, their relatives and medical workers at the hospital simultaneously having high temperatures, a runny nose and sore throat.

Sixteen of them tested positive for Influenza A (H1N1), an acute respiratory disease, according to a result made known to the public on Saturday morning.

Over 80 patients suspected of having been exposed to the woman have been isolated for observation and are expected to leave the Tu Du Hospital no later than Monday, when the gynecological department is disinfected for full service again, according to Nguyen Ba Nhi, the infirmary’s vice-director.

The outbreak was basically brought under control, with no more H1N1 infections reported up until Saturday morning, Nhi underlined.

The patients will be given ways to prevent the swine flu and limit its spread in home settings, he added.

The disease can be transmitted by droplets emanating from unprotected coughs and sneezes, hand contamination, and interpersonal encounters in crowded closed spaces, according to the World Health Organization.

It also says in a tropical country like Vietnam, the influenza circulates the entire year round, usually reaching several peaks in the rainy season.

The Southeast Asian country experienced an H1N1 pandemic in 2009, with over 9,000 cases of people contracting the disease and nearly twenty deaths within four months of the year, according to the Ministry of Health.

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