Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam speaks at the meeting of the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control in Hanoi on August 9 (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – The risks of further coronavirus outbreaks
remain ever-present and everyone must absolutely stay on guard, Deputy
Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said.
While
the recent explosion in recorded in Vietnam can
mainly be traced back to Da Nang, especially the three hospitals in the
city, the risks of virus spread in the community remains significant, Dam said,
requiring all localities and the public to be cautious.
He
was addressing an emergency meeting of the National Steering Committee for
Prevention and Control held in Hanoi on August 9.
“No
one can tell for certain that the has been completely eliminated in
the community,” he said.
The
vigilant spirit must be held high at all times, or a resurgence of the virus
could appear like it did recently after months of relaxed measures with no new
locally transmitted cases, Dam continued.
He
added that if the country continues to well implement anti-pandemic measures,
which have been tightened in the last two weeks since the discovery of the
first case in Da Nang’s outbreak, “we have the confidence that
the outbreak will not explode on a wider scale.”
Not
only in the current epicentres of the outbreak like Da Nang or
Quang Nam, all protocols are in all localities – with health workers and public
security officers at the forefront – have been restarted and been constantly
active, Dam said.
Recently,
the health ministry sent five inspection teams to local level to assess the
readiness, he said.
Assoc.
Prof. Tran Dac Phu, former Director of the Department of
Preventive Medicine under the Ministry of Health, said anti-pandemic measures
have been carried out aggressively and effectively in Da Nang, which is
now under lockdown.
At
this point, it could be said that the outbreak in Da Nang is under
control, Phu said.
Le
Quang Cuong, former Deputy Minister of Health, asked that information campaigns
be enhanced in the future so that public awareness and community-minded spirit
would be raised, and everyone would not let their guards down, maintain proper
hygiene to protect themselves, their family, and the community in the new
normal.
Regarding
tests, the steering committee said capacity has been improving a lot compared
to previous outbreaks, including the production of test kits and diagnostic
machines.
In Da
Nang, with the massive number of people needed to be tested in the community,
the health ministry decided they would implement ‘pool testing’, where
specimens collected from five people would be combined and tested via a single
test, said Acting Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long.
If
the test’s results return positive, then all those five people will be tested
again individually, Long said.
This
will significantly speed up population-level screening, especially in the
high-risk groups, the minister said.
“However,
no matter how much we raise our testing capacity, we could never be able
to conduct testing of all people, even in just a province, in a short
timeframe,” Dam said.
“Therefore,
the most important and effective measure is to identify cases, fast trace and
focus testing on high-risk groups.”
In Da
Nang, health workers are processing about 8,000-9,000 specimens a day.
Dam said
through the practical lessons and experience obtained in Da Nang recently,
guidelines need to be compiled so that other localities could quickly deploy
necessary measures when community cases are discovered.
He
also urged people to install health declaration and contact tracing apps like
NCOVI and Bluezone to better identify potential cases./.
Source: VietnamPlus
