Overworked due to a large influx of COVID-19 tests, a health worker passed out from exhaustion while on the job in northern Hai Duong Province, a new epidemic outbreak site in Vietnam.

On Tuesday, images of a female medical worker being hospitalized after fainting on duty in Pham Thai Ward of Hai Duong’s Kinh Mon Town emerged on social media.

According to the image caption on Facebook, the health worker was immediately taken to the hospital by nearby police officers.

Speaking with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday, Vu Manh Hong, chairman of Pham Thai Ward People’s Committee, validated the social media reports.

According to Hong, Pham Thai Ward on Tuesday welcomed a COVID-19 testing cohort who traveled to Kinh Mon Town to collect specimens from second-tier contacts and cases at high risk of infections.

As a large number of people were queuing up for the tests, local medical staffers had to skip their lunch break and work without interruption through the day.

“Around the end of the afternoon, a medical worker passed out on her way to collecting testing samples at the quarantine facility," Hong said.

"After receiving care at the local medical clinic, she seemed to have recovered.”

Regarding the developments of COVID-19 in the locale, Hong revealed that it had detected five COVID-19 cases from Friday to Tuesday, with four high-risk areas cordoned off.

Local authorities had to mobilize all manpower, including police, local guards, and medical staffers, to patrol at control posts and carry out COVID-19 prevention tasks.

“The medical teams are responsible for monitoring and reporting the cases, as well as tracing their direct and indirect contacts," Hong said.

"They have worked incessantly since Friday.”

Vietnam has documented 1,891 coronavirus cases, as of Wednesday morning, with 1,461 recoveries and 35 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

The majority of the domestically-transmitted cases were linked to Hai Duong and Quang Ninh, both located in northern Vietnam.

The country announced the first two local cases on January 28, having gone nearly two months without any community-based infection.

Over 300 domestic infections have been documented in 10 provinces and cities, including Hanoi, since then, according to the health ministry’s data.

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