The country has spent 70 days without community infections of covid-19, but Wednesday recorded the largest number of imported cases since August, the Vietnam’s Ministry of Health reported.
The Ministry confirmed 26 imported COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, all Vietnamese repatriates from Romania and the U.S.
They were quarantined upon entry into the Southeast Asian nation, the health ministry said.
Twenty-five of the patients arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City from Romania on board flight VN82 on Sunday.
They were sent to a centralized quarantine center and had their samples taken for COVID-19 tests. The results returned positive on Wednesday. The patients are treated at a makeshift hospital in outlying Cu Chi District in Ho Chi Minh City.
The other patient is a 18-year-old who returned from the U.S. on Sunday. She had a connecting flight in Japan before landing in Da Nang aboard flight VN311 and being quarantined upon arrival.
The girl tested negative for the novel coronavirus on Monday but retested positive on Tuesday. The patient is being isolated for treatment at a lung disease hospital in Da Nang.
Two other passengers on her flight had been diagnosed with COVID-19 before.
The health ministry announced four recoveries on Wednesday.
Vietnam has documented 1,252 COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday night, with 1,091 having recovered and 35 virus-related fatalities.
The country has spent 70 days detecting zero community infections, but Wednesday recorded the largest number of imported cases since August, the Tuoi Tre News reported.
The country began denying entry to foreign nationals on March 22 but the government allows foreign experts, skilled workers, investors, and diplomats to enter the country on a case-by-case basis, subject to mandatory quarantine.
Though international commercial flights are now suspended, charter planes to the country have been arranged to bring in experts, skilled workers, and diplomats, and to repatriate Vietnamese citizens stranded in other nations and territories due to the pandemic.
Vietnam currently charges international arrivals for quarantine.
Related: An Inside Look: Here’s how foreign arrivals quarantined in Vietnam
It provided the quarantine service for free in the past, according to the Tuoi Tre News