Three Vietnamese nationals are now being treated for the novel coronavirus (nCoV).
Tuoi Tre reports that two of the patients are in Hanoi, while one is in Thanh Hoa Province. All three recently returned from Wuhan on the same flight after taking part in a vocational training program in the Chinese city.
While these are not the first confirmed nCoV cases in Vietnam, as two Chinese men were quarantined at Cho Ray Hospital in Saigon after testing positive for the virus last week, these are the first instances involving Vietnamese.
According to VnExpress, officials are concerned about the contact the three individuals had with other people upon returning to Vietnam. One of them, for example, went to busy Giap Bat Bus Station in Hanoi to travel to her hometown in Thanh Hoa. Shortly after reaching the province, she came down with a fever and started coughing, prompting a visit to a local hospital.
The other two patients hail from Vinh Phuc Province and are in quarantine at the capital's National Hospital of Tropical Diseases. All three interacted with family members and members of the public before being admitted for treatment.
Amid this uncertainty, pharmacies in Hanoi are running out of face masks, while prices for available boxes are skyrocketing.
Also today, Chinese authorities announced that a Vietnamese woman living in Jiangxi Province tested positive for nCoV. The woman is from Dong Nai Province and is married to a Chinese man.
In response to these developments, the Vietnamese government has stopped issuing visas to Chinese tourists, while flights to and from areas impacted by the virus have been halted.
Yesterday, the World Health Organization declared the nCoV outbreak a global health emergency, while nearly 10,000 cases have been confirmed and over 200 people have died. All of the deaths, along with the vast majority of confirmed infections, have been limited to China.
[Photo via Epoch Times]
