HCM City requires returnees from localities with COVID-19 patients in Hải Phòng City and Bình Dương Province to quarantine for 14 days. — VNA/VNS Photo by Hoàng Tuyết

HCM CITY — The HCM City Centre for Disease Control (HCDC) said that returnees from localities with COVID-19 patients in Hải Phòng City and Bình Dương Province must quarantine at home for 14 days.

Anyone returning from Lê Hồng Phong Street in Đằng Giang Ward in Ngô Quyền District in Hải Phòng, and road D35 in the Việt Nam-Singapore residential area in An Phú Ward in Thuận An City in Bình Dương will be supervised by HCDC and tested for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Both localities are connected to two COVID-19 patients, the Ministry of Health said on March 26.

The two patients illegally entered the country from Cambodia via Phú Quốc Island in the southern province of Kiên Giang, and then flew to Hà Nội on Vietjet flight VJ458 before travelling to Hải Phòng in a private car.

Another patient from Bình Dương went to the Mộc Bài border gate in Tây Ninh Province to purchase goods a few days ago.

Meanwhile, a patient in HCM City who travelled with the two patients in Hải Phòng is under quarantine at Củ Chi field hospital.

HCDC said two sites in connection with the positive case have been locked down in HCM City, including the Quốc Thái Hotel in Bình Chánh District and alley no 102 on Lê Văn Thọ Street in Gò Vấp District.

Further contact tracing is ongoing and eight of her direct contacts (F1) and 23 contacts of the F1 cases have tested negative for the virus.

According to HCDC, authorities have discovered that four people who illegally entered Việt Nam on a fishing vessel from Cambodia on March 22 had accompanied the three previously confirmed patients.

One of them had stayed at a hostel in Gò Vấp District and two others at a hotel in District 1 in HCM City, and another in Hà Nội.

All of them have tested negative for the virus.

HCM City and Phú Quốc Island City are seeking three other people who were on the vessel.

Phú Quốc authorities are conducting contact tracing involving the three COVID-19 patients, and 26 of their direct contacts have been found.

The city said that anyone who was at the venues related to COVID-19 patients should contact local health agencies for support.

Nguyễn Lưu Trung, vice chairman of the Kiên Giang Province’s People’s Committee, said that because of the situation in Cambodia, the number of Vietnamese returnees via official and illegal entry is expected to increase in the upcoming time.

He asked border guards to work closely with the coast guard and naval force to review and rearrange checkpoints at sea, and use more patrols to prevent people from illegally entering Việt Nam. — VNS