Vietnamese Covid-19 patient stages rapid recovery in three days

The two men, 29, were announced Covid-19 free by the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi Tuesday.

One of them had returned from Russia via a repatriation flight on May 13. He was confirmed to have contracted the new coronavirus two days later.

The other is a man returning from China on May 31. He had gone on a tour to China’s Hubei Province on January 14 and was unable to return because of travel restrictions. The Vietnamese Embassy in China advised him to stay back in Hubei and helped him to extend his visa.

A friend’s family in Hubei let him stay with them. For more than four months, he rarely went outside and when he truly needed to do so, he wore a mask and zealously followed all disinfection steps.

On May 31, when lockdown measures had been relaxed, he flew from Hubei to Nanning City and entered Vietnam via the Mong Cai International Border Gate in the northern province of Quang Ninh. He was taken on arrival to a centralized quarantine area in Mong Cai. The first test of his samples, taken by Quang Ninh’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention on June 3, showed he was negative. However, the second test done on June 11 came back positive.

However, just one day after he was admitted to the hospital last Saturday, his test returned negative for the first time. A following test proved negative as well, meaning he had recovered as per Health Ministry protocol.

"I was really surprised on being told that I have Covid-19 in the first place, because I felt totally fine and did not have any symptoms of the disease," he said when he was announced Covid-19 free Tuesday afternoon.

He is also confused how quickly he has been confirmed free of the virus, after just three days of treatment.

"I’m really curious to know why I have recovered that quickly. Doctors have not explained it to me."

Talking about his trip to China, he said he felt sorry because it had not turned out as planned. He had prepared for the trip a long time ago and had quit his job to do so. He plans to return home to HCMC and find a new job.

With the latest recovery, Vietnam has just nine active Covid-19 patients left.

The nation has so far recorded 334 cases and 325 of them have recovered.

One woman has just relapsed and was sent back to the hospital in the northern province of Ninh Binh on Tuesday.