Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered drastic contact tracing, large-scale Covid-19 testing, and strict border control after the Ministry of Health confirmed that a resident in the central city of Da Nang became the latest Covid-19 case in Viet Nam. 

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (center) presides over a meeting on Covid-19
response at the Government Office in Ha Noi on July 25, 2020. Photo: VGP

Addressing a meeting this morning, the Government chief tasked the National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control to instruct media and press agencies to continue communication work in an active manner to avoid public panic following the confirmation of the aforesaid Covid-19 case.

All local authorities and the Ministry of Public Security were urged to review all people who have illegally entered the country and quarantined them in accordance with the current regulations.

The latest Covid-19 case is a 57-year old man. His sample was confirmed positive on Saturday morning by the National Institute for Hygene and Epidemiology (NIHE) which was established in 1945 under the Ministry of Health.

Earlier on Friday, the Ministry of Health reported one suspect case of Covid-19 that has stayed only in the central city over the past month.

Having such symptoms like cough, fever and sputum, the man on July 20 visited the city’s Hospital C where he was suspected of having the virus.

Shortly after being notified of this case, the Health Ministry asked the municipal Department of Health to direct the city’s Center for Disease Control and Hospital C to take his sample for testing.

The first screening test, using the RT-PCR method, on July 23 indicated that the man is positive for the virus. Another test of sample collected later the same day also showed the same result.

Samples were sent to the Pasteur Institute in Nha Trang city and the Ha Noi-based National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology for confirmatory testing.

The Da Nang department also immediately took samples for testing from 102 people having close contact with the suspect case at Hospital C and Da Nang Hospital, along with his family members.

All 102 samples of those people tested negative for the virus./.