Minister of Health Nguyễn Thanh Long deliver his speech at an online meeting yesterday morning with localities affected COVID-19 pandemic. — Photo suckhoedoisong.vn

HÀ NỘI — Children under five years old can be quarantined at home now if they come into contact with people positive for SARS-CoV-2, instead of mandatory centralised quarantine like before.

Minister of Health Nguyễn Thanh Long made the announcement at an online meeting Friday morning with localities affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said strict quarantines for children who had contact with COVID-19 patients had previously been enforced and the change aimed to help families with children feel more secure, he said.

Long said localities needed to classify two groups of children for quarantine.

Children under five years old could be strictly quarantined at home under the close supervision of local authorities, though only one healthy relative of the child is allowed to look after the child during quarantine and the child’s family must have no elderly people with underlying diseases.

The ministry had started to apply home quarantine for children under five years old in Cẩm Giàng District, Hải Dương Province, he said.

Children over six years old will undergo centralised quarantine for the first seven days. Health staff will take their samples for SARS-CoV-2 tests on the first, third and seventh days. If all the tests are negative, they can return home and continue home quarantine under the close supervision of the local authority, he said.

Hà Nội’s Director of Health Department Nguyễn Khắc Hiền said currently, the capital had 116 people in centralised quarantine, including 60 children.

Due to the changes to the quarantine model for children, the department will enhance testing of the children in quarantine and if they are negative, the children could return home before Tết (Lunar New Year) holidays and self-quarantine at home after that, he said.

Combine samples

The ministry previously allowed the combination of five samples into a test when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Đà Nẵng City in late July, however, due to the high demand for testing in Quảng Ninh and Hải Dương provinces at present, the localities can combine 10-16 samples for a test, Long added.

Samples belonging to people in one family could be combined in one test, he said.

If the test returns positive, all people in the family will be quarantined and medical staff will take their samples for a second test to find those positive for the virus, he said.

The ministry will order local hospitals to assist local administrations to take combined samples for testing, he said.

Commodity transport

Also at the meeting, Long said the transportation of commodities from COVID-19 pandemic-affected provinces to other localities had been very difficult while Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc’s opinion was to not “ban transport and trade of commodities”, he said.

Therefore, the ministry suggested that if localities ensured testing capacity, they could allow transport commodities out of their provinces after drivers and assistants were tested twice a day and the process of transportation must follow all regulations of preventing the spread of the virus, he said.

“We need changes to ensure both to control the pandemic and the transportation and trading of commodities,” he said. — VNS