Nearly 50,000 Hanoians having returned from Danang since July 8 have undergone rapid testing for Covid-19, of them 11 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the first instance. After confirmatory PCR tests, ten obtained negative test result while one is pending.

Chairman of the Hanoi's People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung addresses the meeting of the Hanoi’s Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control. Photo: Kinh te & Do thi

At a meeting of the Hanoi Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control on August 1, Director of the municipal Health Department Nguyen Khac Hien informed all 127 people who had interactions with the two infected cases in Hanoi - Patient No.447 and Patient No.459 have tested negative for the novel coronavirus.

The 127 suspected cases who made contacts with the patients, though their test results were negative, will be tested again. Meanwhile, they will be placed under close medical observation.

According to Truong Quang Viet, deputy director of the Hanoi Center for Disease Control (CDC Hanoi), some health stations in Hanoi have been crowded and test kits are running out due to the increasing number of people registering for rapid testing. The CDC Hanoi has sent 78,000 test kits out of the 80,000 available to health stations, thus there are only 2,000 kits left in stock.

The municipal Department of Health is requesting the Ministry of Health to provide another 20,000 testing kits. 

Mass testing is expected to end on August 2. Hanoi will encourage people who have returned from pandemic-hit areas to declare their health conditions. Those having signs of cough, fever, shortness of breath must immediately contact medical facilities, Hanoi’s mayor Nguyen Duc Chung said.

The city's authorities said that some people after visiting the beach city continued their tours to many provinces in the central region and it is necessary to get their medical declarations together with those who returned from Danang by road and rail. Danang, a favorite resort city was where the first locally-transmitted cases were found a week ago after more than three months Vietnam had kept the virus sheets clean.

According to statistics, the number of residents in Hanoi returning from Danang since July 8 has topped 72,000, four times the initial estimate of 18,000.