A propaganda poster on stopping the unfold of Covid-19 is seen on a wall as a person smokes a cigarette alongside a road in Hanoi on April 29, 2020
A propaganda poster on stopping the unfold of Covid-19 is seen on a wall as a person smokes a cigarette alongside a road in Hanoi on April 29, 2020.
Manan Vatsyayana | AFP | Getty Photos
Vietnam, as soon as praised for its success in containing the coronavirus outbreak, is now battling a resurgence in instances and has warned that the illness may unfold wider throughout the nation.
The Southeast Asian nation — which shares a border with China, the place the virus first emerged — had not recorded any regionally transmitted instances for greater than three months earlier than a 57-year-old resident of the central metropolis of coastal Danang was examined optimistic for the coronavirus illness on Saturday, stated the Vietnamese authorities.
The affected person had no journey historical past domestically or internationally over the previous month, the federal government stated. However Reuters reported that tens of hundreds of home vacationers have been on trip within the coastal metropolis.
Authorities are getting ready to evacuate the roughly 80,000 vacationers in Danang. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc warned on Wednesday that each province and metropolis within the nation is liable to extra infections, reported Reuters, citing state broadcaster Vietnam Tv.
To be clear, the 450 complete confirmed instances reported in Vietnam as of Wednesday stay comparatively small for a nation with a inhabitants of round 97 million. The nation additionally has not recorded any deaths referring to the coronavirus.
However the renewed outbreak in Vietnam underscores the difficulties governments face in containing the fast-spreading illness. That is the case even for a rustic that was internationally hailed as a possible mannequin for different creating international locations in managing the coronavirus outbreak.
The Vietnamese authorities’s on-line newspaper VGP stated on Monday that preliminary epidemiological investigations confirmed a number of the new instances detected in Danang had been linked to 3 hospitals within the metropolis. Genome evaluation additionally revealed that “this can be a new sort of Covid-19, which is extra infectious,” stated Appearing Well being Minister Nguyen Thanh Lengthy.
Authorities have tightened containment measures in Danang, similar to stepping up contact tracing, limiting crowd sizes and halting non-essential providers. Flights to and from town have additionally been quickly suspended.
On Wednesday, Vietnam reported new instances in its two largest cities — Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh Metropolis — which had been attributed to individuals who visited Danang in the previous couple of weeks.
Reuters, citing metropolis authorities, reported that round 18,000 individuals who visited Danang returned to Ho Chi Minh Metropolis and one other 21,000 went residence to Hanoi.
Resurgence in Asia
Vietnam isn’t the one Asian nation or territory going through a recent bounce within the variety of confirmed Covid-19 instances.
Hong Kong’s chief, Carrie Lam, on Wednesday warned that town is on the cusp of a large-scale outbreak which will overload its health-care amenities and value lives. Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese language territory, had earlier managed to comprise its outbreak — which allowed it to keep away from a lockdown.
However the Hong Kong authorities imposed stricter measures this week.
Taiwan, additionally seen as success story in containing the virus, stated on Tuesday that it was investigating its first attainable native transmitted case in additional than a month, reported Reuters. A Thai migrant employee — who arrived on the island in January — examined optimistic for the illness simply days after returning to Thailand, in keeping with the report.
— CNBC’s Abigail Ng contributed to this report