Hundreds of citizens living in Hanoi had their samples taken for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on March 31 following the capital’s decision to establish 10 quick COVID-19 testing stations close to Bach Mai Hospital, a location that has been hit by a recent major outbreak.

In order for the tests to be efficient, those who had taken care of patients at Bach Mai Hospital from March 12 and dialysis patients based at the site were sampled first.

The rapid nature of the tests meant that by 9:30 am nearly 40 people had received their results, with every test coming back negative for the virus at a testing site located at Dong Da Secondary School in Hanoi.

The testing process only take 20 minutes to carry out, with sampling for five minutes, followed by notifying each person of their results.

Local authorities have stated that, as of 10 am this morning, there have no positive cases of the COVID-19 detected at the Dong Da Secondary School-based testing site. In the event that a positive case is discovered, the patient will be immediately taken to a nearby built-up room to undergo a second sample which will then be sent to a fixed testing facility in order to verify the result.

Khong Minh Tuan, deputy director of the Hanoi Center for Disease Control (CDC), said that this marks the first time that the capital has successfully conducted such quick testing for the community. The test kits were produced by the Republic of Korea and are capable of providing results within 10 minutes with a high degree of accuracy through taking blood samples.

Quick testing on mass is important in order to detect positive COVID-19 cases early and to put in place steps to localise the epidemic, Tuan said, adding that CDC Hanoi has currently received 5,000 tests. There are also plans in place to expand quick testing locations to a number of other densely populated areas in the near future upon the arrival of more test kits.

"Hanoi is applying two methods by taking throat fluids to be tested in laboratories and also taking blood for quick testing in the community," Tuan added.