Staff of the Son Tra District Medical Center on Saturday morning conducted second screening tests for COVID-19 for around 7,500 employees in the Da Nang Industrial Park (IP) located in An Hai Bac Ward, Son Tra District.

Medical workers take swab samples of employees working in the Da Nang IP to test for the virus. Photo: XUAN DUNG

Son Tra District Medical Center Director Pham Hong Nam said that second screening tests for these people are expected to complete within this morning.

The tests aim to early detect those catching COVID-19 in this IP, especially infected people who show no clinical symptoms, as part of the government’s drive to prevent the potential spread of COVID-19 in high-risk settings.

All swab samples of these people will be sent to the Da Nang Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to test for the virus. The Da Nang CDC will perform a 'pooled test' with samples of up to 10 people in order to save time and resources, as well as to get the pandemic under control. If pooled sample is positive all individual samples in that “pool” group are tested. If the pooled sample is negative assume all samples within the pool are negative. Their test results are expected to be ready within tomorrow, May 30.

In the night of May 11 and 12, staff of Son Tra District Medical Center with the support of their colleagues in the municipal Department of Health to collect swab samples from 6,970 people in the Da Nang IP and 4,457 others staffing at checkpoints to be set up at venues linked to suspected Covid-19 cases detected in the Truong Minh Trading and Service Company.

The Da Nang CDC confirmed on May 13 that tests on all of them have come back negative for the virus once.

Reporting by XUAN DUNG – Translating by H.L