During his meeting with representatives of local relevant agencies on Monday, Da Nang Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Van Quang urged the municipal Department of Health to closely work with district-level authorities to ensure sufficient and uninterrupted supply of human resourses and medical materials to scale up the city’s COVID-19 testing programmes.

Secretary Nguyen Van Quang (left) delivers his instructions at the Monday’s meeting to discuss next steps in battle against COVID-19. Photo: TRONG HUNG.

Secretary Nguyen Van Quang demanded that district-level authorities across the city must ensure the collection of swab samples for virus testing from local families should take place in parallell to doing so from those who are at greatest risk of spreading the disease. In addition, the focus should be paid on stepping up tracing and testing contacts of positive cases in the city.

The city’s top leader asked the Da Nang Centre for Desease Control and Preventation (CDC) to recommend more medical facilities in the city to have the capacity to conduct COVID-19 diagnostic testing in order to make test results soonest available.

Da Nang People’s Committee Chairman Le Trung Chinh remarked that risk of COVID19 resurgence is never far away, and quarantine facilities and workplaces in local industrial parks are identified as high-risk settings. 

Chairman Chinh urged the district authorities to quickly trace close contacts of future confirmed cases as soon as these cases are identified.  

Yesterday afternoon, the Da Nang government issued a response plan for early detection of cases and application of appropriate infection control measures which will be critical in stopping the spread of the virus.

Chairman Chinh asked the Department of Health to give its recommendations to the Da Nang CDC to plan for next steps in the city’s testing programmes based on the results of testing family members for the virus. 

Virus testing for members of the remaining 65,888 families in the city is expected to conduct from May 18 -21.

Da Nang registered 7 new COVID-19 positive cases on Monday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 142 since May 3 when the first community infection was reported, according to the municipal Department of Health.

All new cases in the city are close contacts of previously- confirmed patients, and all of them are being placed under quarantine and receiving treatment at local hospitals.

Additional 119 people was put under isolation in the city’s designated facilities on Monday, bringing the total number of mandatory isolated people in the city till date to 2,247.

Till date, the local authorities have identified 15 residential settings as the so-called “medical self-quarantine areas” and  93 hotspots, set up 49 places with entry restrictions.

Medical workers have to date took a throat and nose swab of over 13,450 employees at 82 companies operating in the city to test for the virus.

In parallel with tightening measures to control COVID-19, law enforcement forces have imposed strictest penalties on violations of the city’s COVID-19 rules.

Since May 5, fines of over VND 604 million have been levied on 313 people for their offences relating to the city’s COVID-19 rules.

Reporting by PHAN CHUNG – Translating by H.L