After three weeks of combating against the new COVID-19 wave with the highest level of determination, Da Nang has been praised by Viet Nam's national government for implementing timely and effective measures to curb the spread of the virus.

Previously, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son had also emphasised, “The success Da Nang has achieved offers a valuable lessons for other Viet Nam localities in the fight against COVID-19. Those lessons, in addition to the determination of the whole political system, are its initiative, flexibility and creativity in implementing assigned virus containment tasks".

May 3 marked the new virus wave hitting Da Nang as it registered the first community infection case. Since that, the city has always been stayed calm and keeping a cool head in the face of the COVID-19 ‘storm’ to assess the real situation and take more suitable measures, with a focus on racing against time to speed up zoning, contact-tracking, sampling and testing, thus helping slow down community transmission of the virus.

Since the new virus resurgence hit the city early this month, the majority of positive cases detected in Da Nang have been of known source of infection as they were identified as close contacts of previously confirmed positive cases and already put under quarantine.

As soon as a person tests positive for COVID-19, functional local bodies, in a prompt fashion, keep a closer eye on the verification and analysis of epidemiological information for publicly releasing the travel and contact history of this infection case as soon as possible, with the aim of tracing direct and indirect contacts. Heed is always paid to ensuring that no close contacts are missed by contact tracers and not told to self-isolate”.

Praiseworthily, Da Nang Centre for Disease Control (Da Nang CDC) has recently been honoured with a certificate of merit from Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in recognition of its remarkable achievements in the fight against COVID-19 over the past times.

This agency has successfully deploy the group testing method with combined samples of ten samples, instead of five as previously, in a bid to speed up testing, save time and resources, setting a good example for other localities nationwide to follow.

More recently, CDC Da Nang has recorded its initial successful implementation of the 20-pool sampling method. Instead of testing one person at a time, samples from 20 individuals are mixed together, and tested as one. If the test comes back negative, everyone in the pool is clear. If positive, each member of the pool is then tested individually-thus cutting down on the total number of tests.

By testing samples from many people at once, this method is the fastest and cheapest way to increase novel coronavirus screening as it can save time, chemical reagents and money. In fact, the faster testing for the virus is conducted, the sooner response measures are taken to curb the futher spread.

In particular, Da Nang CDC has closely worked with other competent agencies to speed up swab sample collections for COVID-19 testing, with a daily record of more than 36,400 samples - the highest ever number recorded in the city since early May outbreak.

With its existing capacity and experience, the Da Nang healthcare sector claims to be capable of collecting 100,000 samples for COVID-19 testing per day.

Till date, the city has identified 100 COVID-19 hotspots and 19 residential settings as the so-called “medical self-quarantine areas”, and put 52 high-risk sites with access restrictions

The most important and meaningful thing in the fight to repel COVID-19 is the drastic participation of the whole political system, from the municipal to district/ ward-level authorities, residential settings, and local residents.

Although no social distancing rules are mandated by the municipal administration, locals are advised against going outside if not necessary, and comply with the 5K recommendations of the Vietnamese Health Ministry, namely khau trang (facemask), khu khuan (disinfection), khoang cach (distance), khong tu tap (no gathering), and khai bao y te (health declaration).

Reporting by PHAN CHUNG – Translating by A.T