Two British citizens, who are Vietnam’s 24th and 27th COVID-19 patients, have recovered after testing negative for the virus twice, the Ministry of Health said on Saturday.

They have been treated at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi and are expected to be discharged from the institution in the coming days.

The two Britons became Vietnam’s COVID-19 patient No. 24 and No. 27 after arriving in the Southeast Asian country on flight VN0054, operated by national carrier Vietnam Airlines, on March 2.

They were confirmed to be infected on March 8.

They have tested negative for the novel coronavirus twice, which met the criteria for doctors to confirm their recovery.

The total of patients recovering from COVID-19 in Vietnam is now 19, with 17 already discharged from hospitals.

Sixteen had walked out of the hospital free of the virus by February 26.

On Friday, N.V.T., a 27-year-old Vietnamese man, was released from the Ninh Binh Province General Hospital, located in the namesake northern province, after he had tested negative for the novel coronavirus for three times.

T. was the first recovery out of 78 cases confirmed in Vietnam since March 6 – the country’s ‘second batch’ of patients.

According to the health ministry, eight other patients among this batch, in addition to patients No. 24 and No. 27, have tested negative for the virus for the first time since receiving treatment.

However, a 69-year-old British man and 64-year-old Hanoi woman infected with the virus are now in bad health, with the latter undergoing extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a form of life support.

A professional council including 30 doctors and experts has been established to figure out the best treatment for these two patients.

The novel coronavirus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, has infected nearly 305,000 and killed more than 13,000 globally as of Sunday morning, according to Ministry of Health statistics.

Vietnam’s COVID-19 tally has soared to 94, while no death from the disease has been reported in the country so far.

The country had quarantined over 62,000 Vietnamese and foreigners arriving from COVID-19-hit places by March 19, almost 20,000 of whom have finished their 14-day isolation, according to statistics by the national committee on novel coronavirus prevention. 

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