A vendor selling groceries at a rented kiosk next to Tu Du Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City had tested positive for COVID-19, authorities said on Tuesday evening.

The vendor’s main customers were caretakers of patients at the hospital.

The vendor visited another hospital to check on a coughing symptom and fever a few days earlier and was kept there for monitoring.

The hospital on Tuesday announced that the vendor had tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Local authorities urgently zoned off and disinfected the kiosk, while tracing people who had come into direct contact with the grocer.

A representative of Tu Du, the leading hospital in the field of obstetrics and gynecology and infertility treatment, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the vendor had never come inside the hospital.

The hospital had also issued the guidance for the patients’ caretakers to limit buying supplies from vendors just outside its premises.

The aforementioned vendor’s infection thus does not affect the hospital’s operations, the representative stated.

The Ministry of Health confirmed 55 domestic COVID-19 cases on Wednesday morning, of which 51 were in Ho Chi Minh City, raising the national tally to 13,782, with 5,546 recoveries and 69 deaths.

Since April 27, when Vietnam began to suffer the pandemic’s fourth wave, 10,495 have been recorded nationwide.

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