The island city Phu Quoc off the southern Kien Giang Province discovered 18 new coronavirus positive cases from Sunday to Monday, bringing the total caseload of an infection chain found a week ago to 158, the municipal Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control announced.

Patients who are under treatment at the Phu Quoc City medical center, as well as a quarantine center in a military base on the island, are currently in good condition and show no grave symptoms, officials reported on Monday.

They are all linked to a new COVID-19 cluster, which was first detected on Thursday last week and is the first to have emerged on the popular tourist island since the pandemic occurred in Vietnam early last year.

The outbreak seems to have spread to five out of its nine wards and communes and possibly wider, a doctor at the Kien Giang Center for Disease Control commented.

Currently, 293 people that came into direct contact with coronavirus patients are being isolated at two local centralized quarantine facilities.

In preparation for the vaccination drive that has begun on Tuesday, Phu Quoc authorities have launched a second mass testing for COVID-19, which will be rolled out at 53,000 households across the locale.

In addition, city leaders have allocated a land lot to build a 1,000-bed COVID-19 field hospital in Cua Can Commune.

The island city will receive 247,628 doses of coronavirus vaccine as stated in a recent announcement from the Kien Giang Provincial People’s Committee.

A group of 177 medical practitioners will also be mobilized from other districts to support Phu Quoc’s fight against the virus, according to the Kien Giang steering committee for COVID-19 prevention.

Kien Giang Province has recorded 5,340 local infections since a new virus wave hit Vietnam on April 27.

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