A stewardess and a housemaid, both residing in Hanoi, become the nation’s 46th and 47th coronavirus patients, Vietnam’s Ministry of Health said Friday.
The 46th patient is a stewardess of Vietnam Airlines who had been on flight VN54 from London to Hanoi on March 8. She resides in Khuong Trung Ward, Thanh Xuan District.
Related: Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh city reports another coronavirus case
On Tuesday, she had fever and a sore throat, but no chest pain. The next day she went for a medical check at the Aviation Medical Centre and was transferred to the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases in Dong Anh District, where she was quarantined and tested positive for the novel coronavirus. VNExpress, a local media reports.
The National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology took her sample on Friday and the result also confirmed her positive for the virus. The patient’s current health condition is stable.
According to VNExpress, the 47th patient is a 43-year-old housemaid in Truc Bach Street of Ba Dinh District. She works for the family of Nguyen Hong Nhung, Hanoi’s first Covid-19 patient and the nation’s 17th, and had close contact with Nhung.
After discovering “the 17th patient”, Hanoi has listed and checked all the people that had contact with her, including the housemaid, who was tested and monitored on March 6. The 47th patient’s health condition is stable, doctors said.
Vietnam has recorded 31 coronavirus infection cases since last Friday, after the country going 22 days without any new infection. Previously, 16 patients had recovered and been discharged from hospitals.
Vietnam offers free treatment to all coronavirus patients
People infected with the new coronavirus in Vietnam have been covered by the health insurance fund, while quarantined cases are being given free-of-charge essential items for their daily activities in isolation wards.
Nguyen Nam Lien, head of the Health Ministry’s Planning-Finance Department, confirmed that Covid-19 sufferers in the country will be treated for free, Vietnamese newspaper Nguoi Lao Dong reported.
If test results are negative, the cost of the tests is covered by health insurance, he remarked.
“The health insurance fund covers the entire medical bill for people who get checkups after developing symptoms such as fever, cough and shortness of breath and then test negative for the virus” Le Van Phuc, a Vietnam Social Security official said.
If people are confirmed to have caught the flu-like virus and need extra treatment, their treatment and test fees will be covered by the State budget, Phuc added.