Swab samples are taken for Covid-19 tests in Hanoi, March 18, 2020.
Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy. 

10 patients being quarantined and treated for Covid-19 have tested negative for the novel coronavirus, Vietnam’s Health Ministry confirmed Sunday. 

Three of them have tested negative twice and seven others have done so once.

The three patients who tested negative for the second time are a 26-year-old Hanoi woman coming back from London and confirmed infected on March 6, and two British tourists diagnosed on March 8.

All three are being treated at the National Hospital of Tropical Disease in Hanoi. The facility has 34 Covid-19 patients – 22 Vietnamese and 12 foreigners.

Among seven patients who have tested negative once are three in Hanoi: a British tourist, a Vietnamese flight attendant and a 25-year-old French woman. They are awaiting their second results at the National Hospital of Tropical Disease in Hanoi.

The other four are two British tourists and being treated in Da Nang, one British tourist in Hue and a Vietnamese woman in HCMC.

The Health Ministry said most of the patients are in stable condition with no fever, cough or breathing difficulties, and their chest X-ray readings are normal. A few patients who showed signs of pneumonia were treated with a specific regimen for the disease, the ministry said.

Under Health Ministry regulations, a person infected with the novel coronavirus is deemed healthy once she/he shows no sign of fever for three days and tests negative twice in three days. Other signs include improved clinical symptoms, overall stable status and vital signs, normal organ function and improved chest X-ray readings.

Most recently on March 20, a 27-year-old Vietnamese man found infected with Covid-19 after returning from South Korea was discharged from hospital after having no fever and being tested negative three times in a row.

Vietnam has recorded 99 Covid-19 infections, of which 17 have been cured and discharged. Of the 82 active cases, 26 are foreigners.

The Covid-19 pandemic has spread to 188 countries and territories so far and its global death toll has increased to more than 13,000.