Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long speaks at the teleconference on May 29, saying that Vietnam has discovered a new hybrid coronavirus - PHOTO: VGP
HCMC - The Ministry of Health has detected a new coronavirus hybrid formed from the mash-up of two variants that first emerged in India and Britain, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long told an teleconference today, May 29.
The hybrid variant is more easily transmissible than others, Long said, adding that the concentration of the virus in the mucus in the throat increases quickly, so it can spread fast, Long said.
Based on the results of genetic analyses of the virus from several locally-infected cases, Long said that the Indian variant had spread to many parts of Vietnam, while the British variant had hit Danang City and some other parts of the country.
Speaking about the Covid-19 situation, Long said that Covid-19 started spreading from industrial parks, so to protect business and production activities, it was necessary to protect industrial parks from the disease.
The minister asked the industrial parks to regularly conduct Covid-19 tests on at least 20% of workers, the local media reported.
Vietnam looks to reach herd immunity in 2021, so the country is in active negotiations with foreign drugmakers to secure Covid-19 vaccine supplies while urging local vaccine makers to speed up research and production.
As Bac Giang and Bac Ninh provinces are the country’s biggest coronavirus hotspots, vaccinations will be prioritized for the two provinces, Long said.
Chairing the teleconference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that due to the spike in domestic Covid-19 cases, the country must take more aggressive measures to curb the spread of the virus.
