The Hanoi city government has decided to set up five more rapid Covid-19 testing booths for mass testing in urban districts, VnExpress quoted Deputy Director of the Hanoi Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) Khong Minh Tuan as saying.

Tuan said that the total nine booths are located in eight urban districts of Hoan Kiem, Long Bien, Cau Giay, Hoang Mai, Ha Dong, Dong Da, Hai Ba Trung, Ba Dinh and suburban Thanh Oai.

Citizens are sampled at a quick Covid-19 testing station in Hanoi’s Dong Da district. Photo: Giang Huy

The Hanoi CDC will set up rapid Covid-19 testing booths in all 30 districts in the city. However, the process depends on the number of test kits to be delivered.

Besides, in face of the shortage of health workers with expertise in sampling and testing, the Hanoi CDC is organizing training courses for 800 employees.

People who will be sampled for quick testing are Covid-19 patients, caregivers, interns and those who visited Bach Mai Hospital’s canteen between March 10 and 28. About 16,000 people are subject to this category, according to statistics of the Hanoi Department of Health.

Hanoi began rapid Covid-19 testing on March 31. Quick test kits made in South Korea will be used at the booths and they will show results after 10 minutes analyzing blood samples. As of April 2 night, 1,782 people have used this testing service, six of them were positive for coronavirus but the tests came out negative when diagnosed again by Realtime RT-PCR in labs.

At the time of writing, Vietnam has recorded 233 Covid-19 patients, of them 85 have been cured and discharged from hospital. Hanoi reported 105 active coronavirus-infected cases, the largest number in the country.