Vietnam’s central Da Nang City has set up many hotlines and emails to help foreign nationals facing difficulties due to COVID-19 impacts.

The municipal People’s Committee on Thursday issued a directive asking the Department of Foreign Affairs to establish and announce eight mobile phone hotlines to receive requests for help from foreign residents, the Da Nang Portal reported.  

Among the hotlines, five are for English speakers and the other three for those who speak Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

Each hotline is attached with an email of the contact person.

All the hotline numbers and the email addresses must be publicized in both Vietnamese and foreign languages on mass media, such as the city’s public service switchboard 1022, the municipal information portal and the websites of the department and district administrations.

The department must assign staff on duty on the hotlines and emails to receive requests from foreign nationals and contact relevant local authorities to handle them. 

The agency is also required to coordinate with the Department of Industry and Trade and other relevant bodies to tackle the difficulties facing foreigners in the city, where social distancing measures are being applied to curb the coronavirus spread.

Issues beyond the department’s authority should be reported to the city’s administration for resolution, the directive said.

District authorities are required to join hands with the department to promptly provide supports for foreigners in need.

Recently, many wards in Da Nang have given essential items to needy foreign nationals.

Nai Hien Dong in Son Tra District, for example, offered 25 gifts including food to 25 foreigners on August 21 and 22.

The city, whose population is over 1.13 million, has documented 4,216 COVID-19 cases, including 55 deaths, since the pandemic hit the country in early 2020, the Ministry of Health reported.

Nationwide, the total coronavirus patients have so far reached 406,224, including 10,053 fatalities, equivalent to 2.5 percent, or 0.4 percentage points higher than the global mortality rate.

By Friday, the numbers of people receiving the first and second COVID-19 vaccine shots in Da Nang have amounted to over 128,200 and 34,500, respectively, according to the National COVID-19 Vaccination Portal.

The corresponding figures for the country are some 18.8 million and nearly 2.2 million.

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