Asymptomatic cases account for 66.6 percent of coronavirus infections in Hanoi, the municipal Department of Health’s director Nguyen Khac Hien reported at a meeting of the city’s steering committee for novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) prevention and control.

“About 66.6 percent of the [confirmed] cases did not develop clinical symptoms and were only detected through testing,” Hien told the meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

“Therefore, there are still potential risks of new cases or complicated outbreaks in the city,” he added.

Hanoi has recored 124 COVID-19 cases, of whom 75 have recovered as of Thursday.

Seventy-four of the confirmed cases in the capital city were detected in the community, with 13 of them related to an outbreak in Ha Loi Village, located in Me Linh District, Hien said.

At Wednesday's meeting, the Hanoi health department’s director also reported on two new cases, including a 36-year-old woman from Thuong Tin District, who had stayed at Bach Mai Hospital between March 8 and 10 to take care of her mother, an inpatient there.

The other case is a 46-year-old man from Ha Loi Village who is linked to patients No. 243, 257, and 258.

In a detailed report of the outbreak in Ha Loi Village, Hien said that the situation remains complicated there with some of the 13 patients having had close contact with medical staff.

Currently, 11,847 people in Ha Loi and neighboring Lieu Tri Village have been sampled for COVID-19 testing, with five cases having tested positive for the virus.

Meanwhile, 783 other people who have been to the Me Linh flower market, where patient No. 243 had frequented before he was diagnosed with the disease on April 6, have been monitored and placed under quarantine.

Speaking at Wednesday’s meeting, Nguyen Nhat Cam, director of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) of Hanoi, requested that all people who have symptoms such as coughing, a fever, shortness of breath, a sore throat and pneumonia in Me Linh District be treated as suspected cases.

“It is necessary to isolate and sample [these suspected cases] for early detection and control,” Cam said, adding that the district needs to assess the risk from other sources of infection outside Ha Loi Village.

In relation to the 36-year-old woman from Thuong Tin District — the 266th patient of Vietnam — Cam said that the Hanoi CDC has sampled 40 cases linked to her.

Cam warned that there are still cases having yet to be tested, urging districts in the city to quickly review suspected cases in the community for early testing.

Vietnam has so far confirmed 268 coronavirus infections, with 176 of the patients having recovered.

Three patients in the northern province of Ha Nam exited the hospital on Thursday morning and two other cases were discharged in the northern province of Quang Ninh on the afternoon of the same day after making a full recovery.

No death related to the disease has been reported in the country.

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