Beverage vendor outside Ho Chi Minh City children’s hospital catches COVID-19

She last had contact with her virus-stricken daughter and son-in-law on June 8

Beverage vendor outside Ho Chi Minh City children’s hospital catches COVID-19
A medical worker collects samples from a child for COVID-19 testing in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Thu Hien / Tuoi Tre

A street vendor selling beverages in front of the Children’s Hospital 1 in District 10, Ho Chi Minh City has tested positive for the novel coronavirus after her daughter and son-in-law caught the disease.

T.T.N., living in District 11, was taken to the district’s hospital by her husband at 9:00 am on June 13 after running a fever on June 9 and taking medication at home, followed by a sore throat and loss of appetite on June 12.

N., 48, was isolated in the emergency screening room upon her admission to the hospital and tested for COVID-19.

Both the results of her rapid and real-time RT-PCR tests returned positive for the pathogen.

The District 11 Hospital temporarily stopped accepting patients into the emergency screening room and disinfected the entire area of this ward whereas N. was transferred to Cu Chi Field Hospital on June 13 for quarantine and treatment. 

According to the hospital, there were nine people, including the beverage vendor, in the emergency screening room at the time of her arrival. 

All medical staff in the room were wearing full protective gear, while other patients and their relatives were masked and did not come into direct contact with N.

She sold coffee in front of gate No. 6 of the Children’s Hospital 1, according to an epidemiological investigation. 

Previously, N.’s daughter and son-in-law had been confirmed as COVID-19 patients and were sent to Cu Chi Field Hospital for treatment on June 12.

She last had contact with her daughter and son-in-law on June 8 before suspending her street-vending business from June 9.

Ho Chi Minh City authorities decided on Monday to extend the enhanced social distancing measures implemented since May 31 by two weeks given an escalation in transmissions.

From April 27 to Wednesday morning, the city has recorded 980 local cases of COVID-19, making it the locality with the third-highest number of infections in Vietnam, after Bac Giang with 4,462 patients and Bac Ninh with 1,424.

Hanoi follows in fourth position with 464 infections.

These infections are among the total caseload of 8,088 recorded in 40 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces and cities in this ongoing virus wave — the fourth and the worst since the pathogen first hit the country on January 23, 2020.

The nation has documented an accumulation of 11,304 patients, including 9,657 domestic and 1,647 imported cases ever since.

Recoveries have reached 4,543 while 61 patients have died, mostly with critical underlying medical conditions like cancer and chronic renal failure.

tuoitrenews.vn

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