Vietnam reported 14 new coronavirus cases while taking one patient off the national count following negative retests on Thursday, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

The country's tally has topped 1,000 cases since the virus first hit it in January.

Eleven of the additional cases were registered in Da Nang, one in neighboring Quang Nam Province, and two imported infections.

The patient in Quang Nam is linked to the cluster in Da Nang, a touristy city on the central coast.

The two imported cases include a 33-year-old Filipino expert who entered Vietnam from South Korea and a 27-year-old Vietnamese returnee from Equatorial Guinea. Both were quarantined upon entry, as per regulations.

The Filipino is treated in Khanh Hoa Province, located in south-central Vietnam, while the Vietnamese patient is receiving medical care in Ho Chi Minh City.

On Thursday morning, the Ministry of Health confirmed a 87-year-old man had tested positive for COVID-19 when hospitalized in Hanoi one day earlier.

But the ministry removed the patient from the tally in the evening following his three consecutive negative retests the same day.  

Vietnam also announced nine recoveries on Thursday, all in Da Nang.

The Southeast Asian nation has documented 1,007 COVID-19 patients, including 666 local infections as of Thursday night, according to the health ministry.

A total of 542 patients have beaten the pathogen while 25 have died, most having suffered critical concomitant conditions.

A separate patient died on August 12 after having tested negative for the virus four times.

Five hundred and twenty-five domestic cases, most traced back to Da Nang, have been recorded since July 25, when the beach city logged the first locally-transmitted infection after Vietnam had gone 99 days without documenting any community transmission.

Vietnam has closed the border to foreigners since March to quell OVID-19 but the country grants exemption to foreign experts and skilled workers who are to be quarantined upon arrival.

The Vietnamese government has arranged for many flights to take home citizens stranded in other countries over virus-related travel restrictions.

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