The two new infections were that of family members of an infected Vietnamese worker who’d returned from China’s Wuhan City last month. The worker was one of eight employees of Japan-based Nihon Plast Company Limited who’d been sent to Wuhan for training two months ago.

They employees had returned to Vietnam on a Southern China Airlines flight (CZ8315) on January 17. They were picked up by the company car at Hanoi's Noi Bai Airport and attended a company meeting in Thien Ke Commune, Binh Son District, Vinh Phuc Province, about 18 km from the airport. Five of them were later confirmed to be infected with the nCoV.

The newly infected people are the 49-year-old mother and 16-year-old sister of the 23-year-old worker who remains quarantined in the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases in Hanoi.

The mother started coughing on February 3, while the sister showed symptoms of coughing and fatigue. They were quarantined and tests done by the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology February 4 showed both of them were positive. They are now staying at the Hanoi hospital and in stable health, the ministry said.

Vietnam had officially declared the 2019-nCoV an epidemic on Saturday. The other 10 infected cases include a cousin of one of the workers from Wuhan, 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 father and son in Nha Trang.

Three of the ten have been discharged from the hospital: the Nha Trang hotel employee, the Chinese son, and one of the workers who returned from Wuhan.

The global death toll from the epidemic has reached 565, with 563 dying in China, one in the Philippines and one in Hong Kong.