A Vietnamese American who was confirmed the seventh patient of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Vietnam this month has fully recovered and will soon be discharged from the hospital where he has been receiving treatment, a hospital representative said on Monday.

T.K.H., 73, was admitted to the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases in District 5 on January 31 with symptoms including a fever, coughing, and shortness of breath.

Tests later showed he was positive for the novel coronavirus – now named SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, making him the seventh confirmed case in Vietnam.

H. was put on a ventilator and prescribed antibiotics and antiviral drugs, said hospital director Dr. Nguyen Van Vinh Chau.

After two weeks of treatment at the infirmary, he tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 for five consecutive times between February 12 and 17, Chau said.

His vital signs, including body temperature, pulse rate, respiration rate, and blood pressure, were all within the normal range as of Monday.

A COVID-19 patient is allowed to be discharged from the hospital only after their fever has ceased for at least three days and at least two samples, taken one day apart, test negative for the virus, according to a treatment guidance issued by the Ministry of Health.

In H.’s case, the Vietnamese American still needs to be sampled and tested by the Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute to verify the hospital’s test results, Chau told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

H. is Vietnam’s oldest COVID-19 patient so far and the third case reported in Ho Chi Minh City.

He left the U.S. on January 14 and arrived in Wuhan on January 15. He was at the airport in the central Chinese city for two hours, waiting for a connecting flight to Ho Chi Minh City.

He landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on January 16.

He stayed in Room 202 at Trieu Han Hotel at 382/1-3 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street, Ward 5, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City.

During his stay in the southern metropolis, the man developed symptoms including a fever and coughing and was taken by hotel staff to the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases on January 31.

The novel coronavirus disease, named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO), has killed 1,873 people and infected over 73,400 globally since it first surfaced in the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei Province in December 2019, according to the South China Morning Post.

To date Vietnam has confirmed 16 cases of the viral infection, including 13 Vietnamese, one Vietnamese American, and two Chinese.

Among them, seven have fully recovered and been discharged from the hospital.

Another six people are expected to be released from the hospital on Tuesday evening, raising the number of recoveries in Vietnam to 13 out of 16 patients, Vietnam’s national COVID-19 committee said on Monday.

In Ho Chi Minh City, the municipal Department of Health reported on Monday that 24 people were in quarantine at a makeshift hospital in the suburban district of Cu Chi, 23 were monitored in other districts’ isolation zones, and 837 more were under home quarantine.

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