Vietnam's nCoV epidemic epicenter builds a field hospital

The northern province is home to nine of 14 confirmed nCoV cases in the country. Local authorities said the field hospital will be manned by 200 medical staff.

More than 300 military personnel were deployed Monday morning to set up the field hospital at the College of Culture and Arts in Vinh Yen Town, said Doan Thanh Binh, chief of office of the Vinh Phuc Health Department.

The hospital is located away from residential areas and a convenient place to quarantine patients, he added, but did not mention a completion date.

The province, located 40 km from Hanoi, has also set up a quarantine facility with 200 beds at a military school in the same town.

Meanwhile, Saigon's first field hospital with facilities in two locations to deal with the nCoV infections began operations Monday.

Vinh Phuc is home to nine of the confirmed 14 nCoV infections in Vietnam. Three of them are in HCMC and one each in Khanh Hoa and Thanh Hoa provinces.

Among eight workers returning from China's Wuhan City, where the deadly pneumonia virus broke out, six have tested positive for the virus, and two others are awaiting results. Five of the six are Vinh Phuc residents and the other from the central province of Thanh Hoa.

The eight, employees of Japanese-invested company Nihon Plast Company in Vinh Phuc, returned from Wuhan after being sent there to train for two months. 

The mother, sister, cousin and neighbor of one of the five infected workers in Vinh Phuc took the number of infections in the northern province to nine.

Three patients from Vinh Phuc have recovered and were discharged from hospital on Monday.

According to the Vinh Phuc Health Department, 249 locals who previously came in contact with the nine infected patients are now quarantined and under observation.

Vietnam has so far discharged six nCoV patients.

The global death toll has reached 910, with 908 dying in mainland China, and one each in the Philippines and Hong Kong.