Vietnam’s Ministry of Health announced nine new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, all Indians quarantined upon entry into the country last week.

The patients are Indian experts who touched down in Ho Chi Minh City on board flight 6E9471 on October 6.

They were immediately sent to a military school in Dong Thap Province, a four-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City, for quarantine as per regulations.

They were tested for COVID-19 for the first time on October 7 and the results returned negative.

The nine retested positive for the virus on Monday.

They are being isolated for treatment at a hospital in Sa Dec, a city of Dong Thap.

Seven other Indians who flew with the new patients on the same flight had been diagnosed with COVID-19 before.

Five of them are now treated in Dong Thap, one in Dong Nai, and one in Ho Chi Minh City.

The health ministry declared three patients free of the pathogen on Wednesday, taking the total number of recoveries to 1,029.

Vietnam has recorded 1,122 coronavirus infections, including 691 local cases, 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 42 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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