Man contracts COVID-19 from patient under quarantine: ministry

Tubes containing samples for COVID-19 testing (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi – The Ministry of Health (MoH) on November 30 afternoon confirmed a new COVID-19 case that got the coronavirus from another still under quarantine.

According information released at the MoH’s urgent meeting, the new patient, No 1347, is directly linked with Patient 1342 who had been recorded on November 29.

While staying at a quarantine site of Vietnam Airlines in Tan Binh district of Ho Chi Minh City from November 14 to 18, Patient 1342, a flight attendant, had contact with a colleague who is Patient 1325 serving on another flight.

After testing negative for the coronavirus twice, Patient 1342 was allowed to undergo self-quarantine at a boarding house in Tan Binh district.

During this period, the patient had close contact with his mother and two friends. The male friend came to share the house with Patient 1342.

Patient 1342 had his sample collected for the third test on November 28, and the result was positive.

The three people having close contact with him were immediately quarantined and tested. Among them, the male friend is positive and became Patient 1347.

From November 18 to 25, this latest patient taught at an English-language centre in Tan Binh district and another branch of this centre in District 10, and visited some other places.

There are 38 people with close contact with Patient 1347, and 154 others having direct contact with them, according to initial investigation results.

At the meeting, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long requested the HCM City Department of Health to promptly trace and test all people having contact with the abovementioned patients, and they must be put under concentrated quarantine.

He ordered the department to immediately request those who have visited the sites Patient 1347 had come to contact local health facilities, and to temporarily put the places in lockdown.

Long also urged all medical establishments in HCM City to raise their guard, increase screening measures for people with suspected symptoms, and seriously carry out anti-COVID-19 measures as regulated.

Besides, the MoH asked Vietnam Airlines to comply with quarantine regulations at its facilities, and the administrations of HCM City and Hanoi, where the carrier’s quarantine sites are located, to strictly manage quarantine activities.

It also told all-level authorities, especially grassroots ones, to seriously monitor people’s self-quarantine.