HCMC authorities find last man who illegally entered Vietnam with Covid-19

Ho Chi Minh City’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced this on Tuesday morning, saying the man, who lives in District 9, has been quarantined at a centralized facility in the district and had samples taken for testing.

The test results are expected to come on Tuesday.

Nguyen Tri Dung, director of the CDC, said once "patient 1451" had been found in District 5 on Monday, authorities took drastic measures to track down everyone involved with him and quickly found the man in District 9.

"Patient 1451," 23, had stayed with "patient 1440," 32, in Myanmar for three months since September.

They and four other Vietnamese illegally entered Vietnam, though it is not known yet why.

They had traveled from Myanmar to Thailand on December 15 and to Cambodia on December 23, before entering Vietnam the next day.

"Patient 1440" and one of the other five, a woman, went to the Mekong Delta while the other four came to HCMC.

When "patient 1440" arrived at his home in Vinh Long Province, his family turned him in and as soon as he tested positive on Saturday, aggressive contact tracing began to find the rest of the six and anyone else who came into close contact with them.

The woman has been found in Dong Thap Province and she tested positive once. It needs at least two positive tests to confirm one has Covid-19.

The remaining two were tracked down to Districts 1 and Hoc Mon in HCMC, but they have tested negative.

The man living in District 9 has been working at a mechanical factory in Long Binh Ward, and 14 people who had come into contact with him have been sent to quarantine, a spokesperson for the local medical center said.

The country’s Covid-19 tally stands at 1,451 with 35 deaths.