A 74-year-old COVID-19 patient being treated at Quảng Nam Central General Hospital. — Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Health

HÀ NỘI — Leading medical experts from major institutions across Việt Nam on Thursday held a telemedicine meeting to discuss the conditions of two seriously ill COVID-19 patients currently in treatment in Hà Nội and Quảng Nam.

Việt Nam COVID-19 Patient No.1,465, 61-year-old woman, a returnee from the US on December 21, tested positive on December 31 and is currently at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hà Nội. She had undergone a thyroid lobectomy before.

On December 26, the patient reported fatigue and on subsequent days, her condition worsened, with trembling legs and hands, and suffered a loss of appetite.

She is currently on a ventilator and sedatives.

At the meeting, doctors at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases asked for consultation on treatment for her hypothyroidism, muscle weakness, frequent chills, hypothermia, cytokines storm, signs of heart failure and pulmonary embolism, and proposed the use of plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients.

The expert panel said the hospital’s doctors should consider running dialysis and even Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), continue with the administration of the anti-viral drugs remsidivir, and beef up staff taking care of the patient.

Quảng Nam Central General Hospital reported the acute case of a 74-year-old male (Việt Nam's Patient 1,405), also returning from the US, with a history of chronic hepatitis B, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes and has been in the hospital for a month now.

He was admitted to the hospital on December 7 after coughing up blood, a day after he landed at Đà Nẵng International Airport and was moved to a quarantine facility in the central province of Quảng Nam.

His COVID-19 test results came back negative on December 7, 8, and 10, but the fourth test was positive on December 14.

Currently the patient is awake and conscious, but suffers from a bloated stomach, pneumonia caused by ‘superinfection’ of SARS-CoV-2, gastrointestinal bleeding, and progressing liver failure.

The medical expert panel said the hospital’s treatment plan is going in the right direction for a seriously ill patient with numerous underlying conditions.

The patient has shown positive progress but the prognosis remains poor, the panel concurred, asking the hospital to continue monitoring his condition and they would provide further consultation when needed.

As of Thursday morning, Việt Nam has logged a total of 1,505 COVID-19 cases, with 1,353 recoveries and 35 deaths, making it one of the countries reporting the lowest infection and death rate. — VNS