By Phuong Nguyen
HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam’s health minister said on Tuesday a coronavirus outbreak that infected 301 people and spread to ten provinces and cities was recently caused by the more contagious British variant of the coronavirus.
“The new variant is spreading fast, we need to be faster,” Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, who heads the COVID-19 task force, said at a government meeting.
“We should not be so worried about the increase in the number of cases. The most important thing is contact detection. We should remain vigilant but not panic.” Six days after the virus re-emerged in the northern province of Hai Duong, the group is under control there, Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said in a government statement. He added that the virus contained in the capital Hanoi, where 20 new cases were detected.
“Genetic sequencing has shown that 12 of 276 patients just detected are positive with the UK variant, although the source of this outbreak remains unknown,” Long said at a cabinet meeting. “We must strictly adhere to the regulations of wearing masks.”
With the new tribe, Long said, each infected person could infect about ten people compared to five in the last waves that hit Vietnam.
Thanks to targeted mass tests and strict quarantine, Vietnam has limited its virus to 1,882 cases and 35 deaths, and it has garnered worldwide praise for one of the most successful national responses to the pandemic.
TEST CAPACITY
“Hanoi needs to step up measures to contain the virus. The health ministry will support the city to upgrade the testing capability to 40,000 tests a day,” Long said.
Hanoi has taken 15,000 samples since the latest outbreak and currently has the capacity to perform 5,000 tests a day, a health department official in Hanoi said on Monday.
Vietnam on Saturday approved a vaccine from AstraZeneca PLC after Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said the country should have one in the first quarter.
The government said earlier that it was in talks to obtain 30 million doses of the vaccine. State media reported that the first batch of 50,000 doses would arrive by March, and the rest would be delivered by June.
Vietnam reported 31 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday. Officials said they would try to stop the latest outbreak by February 6.
(Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Edited by James Pearson, Ed Davies and Gareth Jones)
Originally published