The 25-year-old patient, whose name has not been revealed, is quarantined at the Hospital of Tropical Diseases in the central province and she is recovering gradually, provincial vice chairman Nguyen Dac Tai said Saturday morning.

The patient worked at a hotel on Ton Dan Street in Nha Trang beach town. Li Ding, 66, and his son Li Zi Chao, 28, confirmed as Vietnam's first cases of nCoV infection last week, checked into the hotel on January 16. They were assisted by the receptionist. The father came from Wuhan, the epidemic center, while his son joined him from the southern Long An Province.

Two days later, she developed a fever and cough, but took some medicine on her own.

On January 24, after the two Chinese nationals tested positive for the deadly new coronavirus, Khanh Hoa authorities isolated the receptionist and sent her blood samples to institutes in Nha Trang and Ho Chi Minh City. The results showed that she had contracted the virus too.

Ding had arrived in Hanoi from Wuhan with his wife on January 13 before flying to Nha Trang four days later.

His son Zichao, who had been living in Long An for the last four months, went to visit him in Nha Trang. The three then visited Saigon and traveled to neighboring Long An by taxi.

Zichao developed a fever on January 20, three days after his father. Both were admitted to the Cho Ray Hospital on January 22. Ding’s wife tested negative.

The son had recovered on Tuesday morning, while his father remains under observation at Saigon’s Cho Ray Hospital pending further test results.

The Nha Trang hotel staff is Vietnam’s sixth case of pneumonia virus infection. Earlier, three Vietnamese returning from Wuhan were also infected with the deadly virus.

Besides the female hotel staff, 12 others, including seven Chinese tourists, have been quarantined at the Khanh Hoa tropical hospital.

All the quarantined patients are in stable condition and are being kept under close observation pending test results.

Since last Tuesday, the local tourism sector has stopped all activities to bring Chinese tourists to the province. Nha Trang is a popular Vietnamese destination among Chinese tourists, having helped draw 2.4 million to Khanh Hoa last year.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the new coronavirus outbreak a global public health emergency on Thursday.

27 countries and territories have recorded nCoV infections thus far. Apart from China and Vietnam, the others are Hong Kong, Macao, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, the U.S., South Korea, France, Germany, Canada, the UAE, Nepal, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines, the U.K., Russia, Finland, Nepal, Sweden, and Spain.

As of Saturday morning, the nCoV death toll had risen to 259, all of them in China. About 2,100 new cases have also been recorded in the country, putting the worldwide total at more than 11,000.