Vietnam records 21st coronavirus infection

By Chi Le   March 7, 2020 | 06:08 pm PT
Vietnam records 21st coronavirus infection
Vietnamese medical staff in protective gears during a quarantine drill on March 4, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.
A Hanoi man who was on the same flight as the city’s first Covid-19 patient has been confirmed to contract the novel coronavirus.

The Ministry of Health announced Sunday morning that this man, 61, is a local living in the same neighborhood on Truc Bach Street in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh District with 26-year-old Nguyen Hong Nhung, who tested positive for Covid-19 Friday.

According to the ministry, he sat in the business class near Nhung on flight VN54 of Vietnam Airlines from London to Hanoi on March 2.

He has been quarantined at Campus No.2 of the Hanoi Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases where Nhung is being treated.

There were 201 passengers on the flight, including 21 in the business class, Vietnam Airlines General Director Duong Tri Thanh said Saturday.

Eighteen of the business-class passengers were foreigners while the remaining three were Vietnamese nationals, including Nhung, Thanh said.

City authorities have been cooperating with Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport to collect information about 217 passengers and crew members on the flight.

Vietnam has recorded four new infections since Nhung became Hanoi’s first Covid-19 patient Friday and the 17th nationwide. Before she tested positive, the country had gone 22 days with no new infection.

The 18th, 19th and 20th patients are a 27-year-old man returning to Vietnam from South Korea's Daegu City, the personal chauffeur and an aunt of Nhung.

The latest case, Vietnam's 21st Covid-19 patient, has raised Hanoi's infections to four. The man returning from Daegu hails from northern Thai Binh Province and has been quarantined in Ninh Binh Province, northern Vietnam.

The global death toll has reached nearly 3,600 in 102 countries and territories, mostly in mainland China (3,097), followed by Italy (233), Iran (145) and South Korea (50).

 
 
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