In PV Oil Building in HCM City’s District 1, security guards regularly measure the body temperature of guests. Source https://baotintuc.vn

HCM CITY—  The HCM City Department of Construction has urged district administrations to instruct the managements of apartment buildings to strengthen preventive measures against COVID-19 infection to ensure residents’ safety.

They should comply with Ministry of Health directions and co-operate with local health officials to disinfect their buildings and the vicinity, it said.

Apartment buildings such as Phú Thạnh in Tân Phú District, 9 View in District 9, Masteri Thảo Điền in District 2, and many others have complied with the instructions and stuck notices in several languages on walls near elevators exhorting people to wear masks and wash hand regularly with soap to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In Phú Thạnh building, for instance, hand sanitisers have been placed in the lobby for residents to use. Cleaners are using antiseptic solution to clean floors, handrails, elevator buttons and other places. Guards and cleaners wear masks.

In Masteri Thảo Điền’s lobbies, security guards routinely measure the body temperature of residents and guests.

In other apartments, swimming pools have been closed for the last month.

The Department of Construction has also instructed managements to find out which residents have gone abroad, especially China, and to the northern province of Vĩnh Phúc and report to local health officials to isolate and monitor them for symptoms.

The city has 1,440 apartment buildings with more than 140,000 units, accounting for 8.4 per cent of all homes.

Most of them are in districts 2, 3, 5,7, 8, 9, and 10.

Apartment buildings in Hà Nội and elsewhere are also following similar measures.

JICA support

The HCM City Pasteur Institute on Friday received the first package of testing reagents used for rapid detection of COVID-19 from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The donation was done within the framework of a larger project that provides assistance to Việt Nam in which JICA has been supporting the institute by establishing a biosafety level-3 laboratory and enhancing its capacity for examinations and biosafety. 

JICA, under the leadership of the Government of Japan, said it would continue to support the Government of Việt Nam to combat COVID-19.

The larger project, which concerns "capacity development for the medical laboratory network on biosafety and examination of highly hazardous infectious pathogens" includes assistance from two long-term experts who have been tasked to increase the capabilities and collaboration of the laboratory network in Việt Nam, such as the Pasteur Institute in HCM City and National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE).

Previously, on February 7, JICA provided reagents to NIHE as part of emergency countermeasures against the COVID-19.

The Pasteur Institute manages 20 provincial centres for disease control in the southern region, and has been designated by the Ministry of Health as the leading institution to perform the definitive diagnosis of COVID-19 suspected cases in the southern region. VNS