Epidemic zoning should be tight to extinguish infection in Binh Duong province

In the morning of June 23, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam and the special standing department of Ministry of Health on the prevention and control of Covid-19 had an online briefing with the Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control in Binh Duong province. At Binh Duong connection site, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Thao, Deputy Secretary of the provincial Party Committeeand Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Mr. Nguyen Loc Ha, Member of the Standing Committee of the provincial Party Committee and Deputy Chairman of the provincial People's Committee and the delegation of Ministry of Health including Deputy Ministers Nguyen Truong Son, Tran Van Thuan and representatives of local leaders in the province attended.

Epidemic information unhidden in Binh Duong province

Reporting to Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam and leaders of Ministry of Health, Dr. Nguyen Hong Chuong, Director of local Department of Health, said that since the beginning of the 4th epidemic, Binh Duong has recorded 164 cases of Covid-19 infection scattered in many places. The infection chains in Binh Duong are all related to the outbreaks in Ho Chi Minh city regarding the Indian variant of the virus. In particular, from June 14 , the disease infection has occurred in many companies, factories, and establishments, interwoven with worker dormitories and very quick spread.

By tracing and investigating all disease outbreaks, the local health sector recorded 3,000 F1 and 8,000 F2 cases to screen more than 15,700 people at high-risk companies and key areas. The province currently has 8 PCR testing machines with a testing capacity of about 5,000 - 8,000 single samples and 30,000 - 50,000 collective samples in a day. Regarding the concentrated quarantine areas, the whole province currently has more than 25 concentrated quarantine facilities with 3,000 people being quarantined.

The inspectorate of Ministry of Health examine the concentrated quarantine area at Ly Thai To Senior High School in Thuan An city

Informing about epidemic prevention and control in the province, Mr. Nguyen Loc Ha confirmed that Binh Duong does not hide the epidemic. Binh Duong brought the inspection team of Ministry of Health to examine the reality in Binh Hoa ward (Thuan An city) which is a typical locality with a large population, factories and companies interspersed in residential areas. This is also a hot-spot for the Covid-19 epidemic in recent days. Even in the first wave of Covid-19 epidemic, the provincial leaders always put the work of fighting the disease as a particularly important task to closely monitor and direct the policy and take harmonious measures to ensure both the prevention and control and economic development.

At the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam highly appreciated the results that Binh Duong has achieved in the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic in the past time, which is the rapid and compact zoning of the disease outbreaks under the direction of National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Epidemic Prevention and Control. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said that the risk of disease in Binh Duong is very high as the province has a large number of workers, a high population density; and, businesses are interspersed in residential areas. Therefore, the Deputy Prime Minister suggested that the province must strictly maintain the zoning and stamping out the epidemic right in the zoned area as the disease was already present in the community by stamping out the epidemic right in the zoned areas in terms of testing and taking samples for large-scale testing

The Deputy Prime Minister also suggested the need to strictly manage workers. Enterprises should arrange shifts to work in case of F0 infection shift so as not to paralyze the production and business activities and pay attention to rapid testing. The locality needs to make a list, update the residents, and the employee's phone number for the medical volunteer team to contact and check their health daily through the operating system.

Covid-19 infection quantity in Binh Duong province not large

After inspecting and checking the actual situation of Covid-19 prevention and control at Nguyen Van Thuan hostel at Binh Hoa ward of Thuan An city and the concentrated quarantine area of ​Ly Thai To high school in Thuan An city, Deputy Minister Nguyen Truong  Son said that Binh Duong currently has not a large number of infection cases. However, in the coming time, the epidemic may develop complicatedly and unpredictably; and Binh Duong is a province with many industrial parks and a large number of workers, so it is necessary to take more timely measures to prevent disaster in the community and factories, production and business establishments.

The delegation of Ministry of Health proposed that the provincial People's Committee shoulld continue to tighten the implementation of Directive 16 of the Prime Minister in Thuan An city; at the same time, ensure the use of strategies and tactics on testing and controlling hostels with large numbers of workers. Besides testing, screening and tracing capacity quickly should be strengthened as Binh Duong needs to use information technology to serve the tracing with newly ready quarantine areas; inspection teams of business establishments and Covid-19 teams in the community, in factories and workshops should be established to detect suspected infection cases.

Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son said: “The Ministry of Health recommends that Binh Duong should fully prepare the requirements for rapid antigen tests to serve the screening at all suspected epidemiological and testing sites along with confirmatory test. Binh Duong should also increase testing of single samples from 10,000 to 20,000, and can prepare up to 30,000 to test 50,000 to 300,000 aggregate samples. In addition, Ministry of Health and the standing unit in Ho Chi Minh city organized training for 60 inspection teams of manufacturing enterprises in the province.”

On behalf of the provincial leaders, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Thao received the direction of Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam and the professional guidance of Ministry of Health to help Binh Duong better control the epidemic situation. The chairman of the Provincial People's Committee also emphasized that recently, in some localities, at times and in some places, the Directive 16 of the Prime Minister has not been strictly implemented. Therefore, the Chairman of the provincial People's Committee suggested that localities need to implement more seriously by giving priority what needs to be done right away. The local authority will accept and implement the real contributions of the inspection team in the spirit of initiative to avoiding the situation of unbalanced command and implementation.

Reported by Kim Ha - Translated by Vi Bao