Ho Chi Minh City authorities are considering calling on recovered COVID-19 patients to participate in pandemic control efforts, according to a document signed by city chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong.

Phong has requested the city’s Department of Health to give advice to the municipal steering committee for COVID-19 prevention and control regarding the plan, particularly on tasks to be assigned to the recovered patients and their benefits.

In the document, the chairman also asked the department to collaborate with a unit of the Ministry of Health in the city to review the operations of COVID-19 treatment establishments so as to provide suitable consultancy for the committee in terms of resource coordination, procedures for patient transfer and treatment, and medical guidelines.

The department was also ordered to regularly update the patient admission capacity of each treatment establishment.

Huynh Thanh Nhan, director of the municipal Department of Home Affairs, previously said that the city needs over 12,000 more health workers, including 2,800 doctors, 8,200 nurses, and 1,000 volunteering medical lecturers and students, to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The city’s manpower coordination team for COVID-19 prevention and control, which is led by Nhan, proposed the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of National Defense, and the government’s special working group mobilize medical forces from other localities, especially doctors and nurses capable of performing resuscitation, to assist in treatment efforts.

Vietnam had documented 246,568 COVID-19 cases as of Thursday evening, with 89,145 recoveries and 4,813 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

The country has recorded 242,603 local infections in 62 provinces and cities since the fourth transmission wave began on April 27.

Ho Chi Minh City is the hardest-hit locality with 137,008 cases.

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