Ho Chi Minh City authorities have requested the local health agency to quickly procure medical machinery and equipment necessary for treating COVID-19 patients.

The request was made in a directive issued by the municipal People’s Committee on Saturday evening to adopt urgent measures to contain the coronavirus spread in the city, which is Vietnam’s most bustling economic hub.

Among the medical devices to be purchased are ventilators, infusion machines, patient monitors, and dialysis machines, the directive said.

The Department of Health has also been asked to increase its testing capacity to 500,000 samples per day to speed up screening in virus hotbeds.

The People’s Committee asked the health department to prepare for different scenarios in response to epidemic emergencies and submit them to it for consideration.

The department was required to expand centralized quarantine facilities to accommodate more people when needed.

The local government has suspended public transport, including taxis, app-based car services, inner buses, and inter-provincial coaches as a new epidemic control measure.

The administration has also ordered the closedown of unofficial markets, shortened the mandatory distance between people to 1.5 meters from two meters, and cut down limits of public gatherings to three people from five. 

The Ministry of Health on Sunday noon confirmed 130 domestic infections, of which 34 cases were detected in Ho Chi Minh City. 

The new cases have taken Vietnam’s tally of patients to 13,117, including 5,054 recoveries and 64 deaths, since the pandemic hit the Southeast Asian country in early 2020.

The ministry has documented 9,850 community cases since April 27, when the fourth virus wave broke out in the country.

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