Five Indian experts confirmed as imported COVID-19 cases in Vietnam
Friday, October 09, 2020, 22:07 GMT+7
Vietnam recorded five imported COVID-19 cases, who are Indian experts, on Friday, at a time when the country has gone over a month without documenting a single infection in the community.
The five patients’ flight landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City from India on Tuesday, according to the Ministry of Health.
They are Indian experts of Sethia Hemraj Rice Oil Company Limited, based in Sa Dec, a city of Dong Thap Province in the Mekong Delta.
They were sent to a quarantine center at a military school in Dong Thap upon arrival at Tan Son Nhat.
They had their samples taken for COVID-19 testing on Wednesday and the results returned positive.
They are being isolated for treatment at a hospital in Sa Dec.
The health ministry declared one patient free of the virus on Friday, taking the number of recoveries to 1,024.
Vietnam has confirmed 1,105 coronavirus cases, including 691 domestic infections, as of Friday night, with 35 virus-related deaths.
A new wave of infections hit the country on July 25, when Da Nang documented the first community transmission after 99 days of zero domestic cases nationwide.
A total of 551 local cases were then logged across Vietnam in the following weeks, the majority linked to Da Nang.
The nation spent over a month tracing contacts and managing to suppress the outbreak.
No community-based infections have been documented in Vietnam for the last 37 days.
Vietnam began denying entry to foreign nationals on March 22 but the government allows foreign experts, skilled workers, investors, and diplomats to enter the country on a case-by-case basis, subject to mandatory quarantine.
Though international commercial flights are now suspended, charter planes to the country have been arranged to bring in experts, skilled workers, and diplomats, and to repatriate Vietnamese citizens stranded in other nations and territories due to the pandemic.
Vietnam currently charges international arrivals for quarantine. It provided the quarantine service for free in the past.
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