A 24-year-old Vietnamese woman who arrived in Vietnam on a private jet this week has tested positive for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), raising the country’s total to 32, the Ministry of Health said on Tuesday.

N.T.T., who lives in London, attended the Milan Fashion Week in Italy from February 18 to 24, where she interacted with Vietnam’s‘patient No.17.’

Vietnam’s 17th COVID-19 patient is a 26-year-old woman who went to London, Milan, and Paris prior to returning to Hanoi on March 2.

On February 27, the two young women met up, attended a party together, and hung out with a group of mutual friends in England.

T. briefly self-quarantined in London before boarding a charter plane to return to Vietnam.

She is now receiving treatment at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City after testing positive for the virus.

Patient No. 32 began coughing without a fever on March 2 while she was in London, according to the government’s verified Facebook account.

She went to a hospital in London for a health checkup and was told to practice self-quarantine at home.

Upon learning that her friend, patient No. 17, had tested positive for COVID-19 in Hanoi on Friday last week, she returned to the hospital but was only given more medications, which did not help ease her illness symptoms.

Concerned about her health, the patient boarded a private jet back to Vietnam and went through immigration at 8:15 am on Monday. She was coughing and had a body temperature of 37.5 degrees Celsius.

The woman was taken to a makeshift hospital in Cu Chi District for quarantine immediately after entering, and was later transferred to the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases at 8:30 pm on Monday.

Her samples were tested by the Pasteur Institute Ho Chi Minh City on the same evening, with results coming out positive at 10:30 pm.

Vietnam has so far confirmed 32 infections, including 19 Vietnamese, two Chinese nationals, one Vietnamese American, eight British citizens, one Mexican, and one Irish national.

Sixteen of the patients had recovered and been discharged from the hospital by February 26.

Patient No. 17 was confirmed after Vietnam had reported no new infection since February 13.

Her older sister, who lives in the UK and attended fashion events in Milan and Paris with N., tested positive for the virus before she did.

A handful of Vietnamese celebrities who may have had contact with the two at the events have been quarantined for health checks in Vietnam.

Over 100 people in Vietnam have been placed in quarantine for interacting with N. or with those who had close contact with her.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!