HCMC – The National Hospital for Tropical Diseases will temporarily stop receiving inpatients at both of its campuses from today, May 5, after a doctor working at the hospital tested positive for Covid-19.

Pham Ngoc Thach, director of the hospital, has asked both campuses, in Dong Anh and Dong Da districts, to instruct patients coming to the hospital for re-examination to visit appropriate medical centers.

All employees, patients and their caregivers are being quarantined at the hospital until further notice. They have been asked to strictly comply with measures against cross infection. The hospital is taking samples from all employees for Covid-19 testing and vaccinating them against Covid-1, a deadly disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Patients that visited the hospital over the past 15 days have been urged to immediately contact the local health departments or centers for disease control.

The doctor who tested positive for Covid-19 works at the hospital’s Resuscitation and Emergency Ward. Over the past few weeks, he did not come into contact with Covid-19 patients at the hospital. However, he had met many friends in Ba Dinh, Dong Da, Hai Ba Trung and Tay Ho districts in recent days.

His source of infection has not been identified.

The National Hospital for Tropical Diseases is a frontline hospital that treats the largest number of Covid-19 patients in the country. Up to now, the hospital has reported no Covid-19 fatalities.

In 2020, two doctors at the hospital were found infected with the virus.