VIETNAM CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
Liên Đoàn Thương Mại Và Công Nghiệp Việt Nam
Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 08:32:00
The youngest of nine patients quarantined in Vinh Phuc Province’s Binh Xuyen Medical Center is nine.
All had been in contact with a person returning from China’s Wuhan City last month.
Within the Binh Xuyen District Medical Center, around 40 km from Hanoi, large signs read "Special Quarantine Area."
The emergency ward has been divided into two sections, one for those who want to take tests for acute pneumonia, which is encircled by hundreds of meters of barbed wire.
Nguyen Thi Thanh, 42, is being treated for acute pneumonia inside the center's Department of Infectious Diseases. Her cousin, Pham Dung, 23, tested positive for acute pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus (nCoV) after she and her co-workers at the Japanese-owned Nihon Plast Company Limited returned to Vietnam after training in Wuhan last month.
Thanh and Dung are two of the 12 people in Vietnam who have tested positive for the nCoV, whose rapid spread saw it declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization.
First detected in Wuhan last December, the virus has now been spotted in 28 countries and territories around the world, infecting over 31,400 and killing 638.
Seven cases have been found in Vinh Phuc, the highest number in any province or city in Vietnam.
A red sign reads "Special Quarantine Area" at the Binh Xuyen District Medical Center,
Vinh Phuc Province, on February 5, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Tat Dinh.
Dung first came down with a fever on January 26. Thanh was not in close contact with her during that time.
When Dung’s fever went down two days later, the cousins sat with the family for a karaoke party and chatted.
On January 31 an ambulance from Hanoi's National Hospital of Tropical Diseases came to Dung's house. She was later revealed to be Vietnam's fourth and Vinh Phuc's first patient with nCoV infection.
Thanh became Vietnam's 10th case five days later.
Meanwhile, the number of cases globally had ballooned from 7,816 to 20,623.
"I heard something about a disease in China," Thanh says, adding that she neither knew anything about it nor about the fact that her cousin had just returned from Wuhan, ground zero of the outbreak.
Thanh recalls having a slight fever and sore throat after her final day at work at the Binh Xuyen Industrial Complex on January 22 before the Lunar New Year festival.
She carried on as usual, cooking and buying food for the holiday, and did not bother to get medicines.
Thanh says: "I and my cousin met for less than an hour. If my immune system had been good, maybe I might not have caught the disease."
She is lucky however since her symptoms have subsided after a week in quarantine and treatment.
Nguyen Minh, 25, is Dung’s neighbor. On January 24, the night before Lunar New Year, he, Dung and some other friends hung out for three hours before going to see the fireworks.
Despite knowing that Dung just returned from Wuhan, Minh let his guard down since she had no symptoms.
The day Dung was taken by ambulance, Minh told his wife to return to her mother's house while he went to the Binh Xuyen Medical Center to get his blood and throat swab samples tested and quarantine himself.
"I was worried because my wife was four months pregnant," he says. Though his tests came back negative, he decided to stay in the center for three more days. Just in case.
The ward for treating nCoV patients at the Binh Xuyen medical center
in Vinh Phuc Province. Photo by VnExpress/Tat Dinh.
In a room next door, four young women, all Dung’s friends, are also in quarantine. They came to the center on their own on January 31 to be quarantined after discovering Dung was infected.
Tam, one of the four women, says: "On the second day of the Lunar New Year, Dung came to my house then we all went to a pagoda. It was quite crowded. Dung was a little feverish, so I told her to get it checked."
Tam, also a worker at the Binh Xuyen Industrial Complex, was allowed to take a few days off so that her health could be monitored.
Her nine-year-old nephew has also been quarantined at the center since he was at home when Dung had dropped in. He is the youngest person in quarantine.
Sporting a blue protective suit from head to toe, nurse Nguyen Thi Huong, 36, visits the quarantine area once every two hours to check on her patients. Her ears, cheeks and nose are red from the marks of her mask. Despite being provided a mask by the hospital, she bought three more herself.
She says: "It hurts when I wash my face and when I sleep. But I got used to it in a few days; it's work."
She only visited home one time the other week: "Can’t be too careful."
Nurse Nguyen Thi Huong, 36, wears a protective suit at the Binh Xuyen
medical center in Vinh Phuc Province. Photo by VnExpress/Tat Dinh.
Of the nine admitted to the center's quarantine area, Thanh's symptoms have subsided, while six have tested negative for the nCoV and the other two are awaiting their test results, Doan Duc Toan, the center’s deputy director, says.
The center has 20 beds in the quarantine and has disinfected houses and schools in the area, he adds.
"If the epidemic spreads, we will build another quarantine area with 70 beds."
The Vinh Phuc People’s Committee said it plans to build a field hospital within the Phuc Yen General Hospital and expand it if there are more than 200 patients.
The Vietnamese government declared the novel coronavirus outbreak an epidemic last Saturday. The country had 12 confirmed cases as of Thursday, the latest being the mother and a sister of Dung, who were diagnosed that day.
The other cases in Vietnam are a Vietnamese-American visitor who transited in Wuhan, a Chinese man from Wuhan and his son who met him in Vietnam, and a hotel receptionist who served the duo in Nha Trang.
Three had been discharged as of Thursday from the hospital: a worker returning from Wuhan, the Nha Trang hotel employee and the younger Chinese man.
*Some names have been changed.
