Vietnamese scientists actively share information about nCoV - VietNamNet

The measures Vietnam is taking to cope with the nCoV epidemic are based on the experience and scientific research results that have been accumulated for many years, since the time it faced SARS epidemic in 2002-2003.

Amid the nCoV outbreak, the UN’s Twitter account quoted WHO’s Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who spoke at the meeting on January 31, 2020 in Geneva “This is the time for facts, not fear. This is the time for science, not rumors. This is the time for solidarity, not stigma”.

He implied the role of science and understanding about coronavirus and epidemiological characteristics in finding the solutions to cope with the epidemic.

In Vietnam, the actions to cope with the outbreak have been taken since the first signs of the disease spread appeared.

In a proactive way, the reserachers from Vietnam’s leading research and treatment units, including the Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Military Medical Academy, National Hospital of Tropical Diseases, Army Hospital 108, Hanoi Medical University, Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang Pasteur Institutes and Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam all quickly connected with international colleagues at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to update the latest information from online platforms such as GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data) and GenBank.

With the readiness to confront the disease, researchers have been working closely with the clinical physicians to quickly find out the epidemiological characteristics of the epidemic as well as the genetic characteristics and infectious mechanism.

The physicans at Cho Ray Hospital and reserachers of the HCM City Pasteur Institute prompty monitored and treated a 65-year old patient with history of hypertension and type 2 diabetes who had symptoms of fever and depression after returning from Wuhan with his wife in early January 2020.

The fathered transferred nCoV to his son, who stayed in the same room at a hotel in Nha Trang City.

After 3 days of incubation, the 27-year-old patient had a fever and even his handkerchief was tested positive to nCoV.

All the information about the symptoms, the incubation process, the test results and the possibility of infection through contacts with others were are carefully recorded by the research team in the article “Importation and Human-to-Human Transmission of a Novel Coronavirus in Vietnam” published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), a prestigious medical journal.

The Chinese patient was hospitalized on January 22, 2020, and the article by Dr Nguyen Vu Thuong and Phan Trong Lan appeared on the journal on January 28, or just several days later.

The article was one of the proofs recognizing the first human-to-human virus infection outside of China with typical disease symptoms.

Kim Chi