HÀ NỘI — The health ministry early Friday announced six new COVID-19 cases – including five Vietnamese returning from overseas and one related to Trường Sinh company-Bạch Mai Hospital cluster, pushing the country’s accumulative number of cases to 233.

The five imported cases were all quarantined as soon as they passed through immigration so there are no risks of community transmission.

Patient 228 is a 29-year-old man with a registered address in the northern province of Bắc Giang, who returned to Việt Nam on March 20.

He is being treated and quarantined at Cầu Yên general medicine clinic in Ninh Bình Province.

Patient 229 and 230 are 28 and 30-year-old women from the central province of Hà Tĩnh, who both also arrived into Việt Nam on March 20. They were immediately transferred to concentrated quarantine site run by 241st Brigade in Ninh Bình Province after their immigration process was completed.

They are currently being treated at Ninh Bình Province’s General Hospital.

Patient 232 is from the southern province of Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu. He returned to Việt Nam on Aeroflot’s flight SU290 departing from Moscow, Russia, arriving in the country on March 27.

He is receiving treatment at Campus No.2 of the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases in the outlying district of Đông Anh, Hà Nội.

Patient 233 is a 24-year-old woman from the central province of Hà Tĩnh, who returned to Việt Nam on the same flight as the 232nd patient. She is also being treated at Campus No.2 of the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases.

Patient 231, a 57-year-old woman residing in Na Rì District of the northern mountainous Bắc Kan Province, is an employee of Trường Sinh Company, which provides logistics and food catering services for a number of hospitals in the northern region and is a major cluster of SARS-CoV-2 positive cases. She is currently being treated in Hà Nam Province General Hospital.

So far, more than 27 confirmed cases have been discovered related to the company, with the first found in the top tertiary referral Bạch Mai Hospital in Hà Nội, resulting in a major clean-up operation, halting of examination and treatment activities, quarantine of a large number of doctors and nurses, as well as rushed attempts to identify all those infected.

By 6am Friday, 75 COVID-19 patients in Việt Nam have recovered while 4,557 suspected cases are being monitored.

Seven more patients in Bình Thuận Province are expected to be released from hospital care today after three virus tests came back negative.

72,942 people – who either have had close contact with the confirmed positive cases or returning to Việt Nam from virus-hit regions –are being placed under home isolation or concentrated quarantine. — VNS