American citizen in Da Nang diagnosed with COVID-19
Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 15:38 GMT+7
An American man residing in the central city of Da Nang has become Vietnam’s 68th patient of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) after his positive test result was confirmed by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday.
The man, 41, is married to a local Vietnamese woman in Da Nang.
He left Vietnam on February 11 and traveled through India, Morocco, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, and the Netherlands.
He occupied seat 57H on board flight SQ323, operated by Singapore Airlines, from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Singapore on March 13.
He boarded SilkAir’s flight MI632, occupying seat 15F, from Singapore that landed in Da Nang at 11:00 am on March 14.
He declared his health condition upon his arrival at Da Nang International Airport and was temporarily isolated there before being transferred to a quarantine camp at Hospital 199, managed by the Ministry of Public Security, in the central city.
The Pasteur Institute in Nha Trang in the namesake capital city of the south-central province of Khanh Hoa received the man’s two test samples on Wednesday morning, one of which returned positive for the new coronavirus, according to the Ministry of Health.
The man is currently being quarantined and treated at Hospital 199.
The newly confirmed case has brought the number of COVID-19 patients in Vietnam to 68, and in Da Nang to four.
Sixteen out of the 68 patients had fully recovered and been discharged from the hospital by February 26, while the other 52 cases are still active.
Among the COVID-19 patients in treatment, one case has tested negative for the virus twice and three other cases have tested negative for the first time.
The Southeast Asian country had gone three weeks without any new infection until March 6.
Vietnam has decided to suspend its visa issuance to all foreigners for 30 days, starting from 00:00 Wednesday, to deal with the increasingly serious pandemic caused by COVID-19.
The novel coronavirus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, has infected over 198,700 people and killed more than 7,900 globally as of Wednesday morning, according to Ministry of Health statistics.
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