Health Ministry demands prudence as COVID-19 cases rise

A medical worker performs COVID-19 testing. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – The Ministry of Health (MoH) has warned of a spike in the number of new COVID-19 infections as well as critical cases.

Over the past week, Vietnam has recorded an average of 2,000 new COVID-19 cases each day. More than 100 seriously ill COVID-19 patients are being treated at hospitals.

The increase will cause overload for the health system, particularly in the context of the outbreak of other diseases such as dengue fever, influenza A and hand-foot-mouth, according to the ministry.

Also, there is a high risk for newly emerging infectious diseases such as monkeypox and chronic liver problems to enter Vietnam.

As the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants of Omicron have appeared in many southern localities while the new academic year will start soon, the ministry is urging localities to continue to speed up vaccination, particularly booster doses for the adult population and the second dose for children between five and under 12 years old.

Inside a health facility treating seriously-ill COVID-19 patients in HCM City. (Photo: VNA)

The ministry said it will continue closely watching the development of the COVID-19 pandemic and regularly evaluate and analyse the situation in order to build plans and scenarios to respond to any outbreak in a timely manner.

The MoH’s General Department of Preventive Medicine has asked local health authorities to update the number of new COVID-19 cases on a daily basis, and tasked them to early detect new infections and minimise critically-ill patients and deaths.

The national COVID-19 caseload in Vietnam now stands at more than 11.3 million, according to the Ministry of Health.

The total number of recoveries rose to over 10 million. There are 106 patients in serious conditions needing breathing support.

The country has so far administered more than 251 million doses of vaccines./.

VNA