A COVID-19 patient in Vietnam has retested positive after being declared free of the virus at the beginning of this month.

The People’s Committee of Hung Yen Province on Tuesday issued an urgent fiat requiring relevant bodies to immediately take coronavirus prevention measures and conduct speedy contact tracing in relation to a patient who tested positive again after having recovered from the respiratory disease.

D.T.H., from Yen My District of the northern province, got a positive retest result from the provincial Center for Disease Control the same day.

H. was declared free of the virus and discharged from the hospital on March 1.

The People’s Committee of Yen My thus ordered grassroots agencies to identify all her direct and indirect contacts for quarantine and testing to prevent possible community transmission.

The provincial People’s Committee also demanded the fumigation of all sites in association with the case.

H. has self-isolated at home since March 1 so it is unlikely she came into contact with anyone, Hoang Huu Hung, a local official, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday.

“We have found no one coming into close contact with her,” Hung said.

“We have isolated her household and disinfected related locations.

“We have also taken samples from 28 of her neighbors for coronavirus screening.”

There have been no reports of recovered patients who retested positive and were infectious at the same time.

Medical experts in Vietnam said that a positive retest could have picked up inactive virus fragments in the body of a patient.

Vietnam has recorded 2,526 coronavirus cases as of Wednesday morning, including 1,587 local infections and 35 virus-related deaths, according to the Ministry of Health’s data.

A total of 1,920 patients, including 84 announced on Tuesday, have recovered from the highly contagious respiratory disease.

Eight hundred and ninety-four domestic cases have been recorded in 13 provinces and cities since January 27, when the most serious wave struck Vietnam since the first-ever COVID-19 patient was announced in the country on January 23, 2020.

Hai Duong alone accounts for 710 cases, while Hung Yen has registered two patients in this wave.

Vietnam started its mass vaccination on Monday after receiving 117,600 AstraZeneca shots on February 24.

The country expects to obtain 150 million doses for the whole population this year, with 60 million already secured from AstraZeneca and the COVAX Facility co-led by the World Health Organization.

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