First local case of coronavirus in Vietnam in nearly 100 days, officials said Saturday, in a nation whose full lockdown and other actions have won praise for monitoring disease transmission.
The patient is a retired 57-year-old Vietnamese man in Danang's southern city and the first communal transmission since April 16.
Local health officials have tested 105 people who were in close contact with him, the health ministry reported on their website.
The guy had brought his mother to a hospital a few days before. Officials said that he was displaying signs of the disease, but offered no evidence of how he was diagnosed.
"Because of respiratory failure, the patient is currently on ventilator support," it said, adding his family believes his contacts with others have been limited.
"He didn't go out of town and just stayed home to look after his grandchild and interact with neighbors, he didn't make contact with strangers," she said.
Since Vietnam lifted its lockdown, Danang has been packed with local tourists returning to their beaches and restaurants.
Despite sharing a long, ungovernable border with China, Vietnam has recorded with no deaths, only 416 cases of the virus — including the latest from Danang.
After the virus emerged in neighboring China, Communist authorities were quick to lock the country down with a rigorous state quarantine and contact-tracing system in place.
International flights remain strictly constrained, with a mandatory two-week quarantine for visitors.
AFP