According to experts from the Ministry of Health who are supporting Binh Duong in the prevention and control of the Covid-19 epidemic, more than 80% of infections in this outbreak in the province have no symptoms while many F0 and in the community have not been detected. The enhancement of large-scale screening tests, especially rapid testing, is an important tactic to effectively localize the epidemic.
Rational response
In recent meetings with the inspection teams of the Ministry of Health, Mr. Vo Van Minh, Deputy Secretary of the provincial Party Committee cum Chairman of the provincial People's Committee, affirmed that Binh Duong is always in a proactive position to fight the epidemic and has sufficient capacity for Covid-19 prevention and control. Over the past time, localities in the province have taken drastic actions in trying to carry out the increasingly consolidated and perfected tracing, quaranining, and testing. Initially, the province had 6 RT-PCR testing machines, but now there are 12 machines with testing capacity of 8,000 samples a day (equivalent to 80,000 10-pooled samples a day) and is implementing testing socialization with Viet A to improve its capacity to 100,000 - 300,000 pooled samples a day.
Medical staffs are taking samples for screening tests in public of Di An city
Currently, the province is receiving a testing center of the Vietnamese General Medical Association with the capacity of testing 10,000 samples a day.
Therefore, the whole province has established 600 mobile sampling teams equivalent to 600 sampling desks each of which can collect 300 samples a day at maximum 176,000 samples a day for 600 desks. The province also established a Coordination Team for tracing and zoning to speed up the sampling process and to ensure that all samples are tested and results are returned within 24 hours. In the past few days, the provincial Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control highly appreciated the number of test samples collected in localities, especially, areas with very high risk such as Thu Dau Mot city, Di An city, Thuan An city, Tan Uyen town and most recently, high-risk localities. On average, the sampling rate has been accelerated to help Binh Duong soon identify the level and risk of the Covid-19 epidemic, so that timely measures can be taken.
Regarding the testing strategy of "picking up" F0 cases to cut off the sources of infection in the community, Mr. Vo Van Minh emphasized that for localities that have deployed a large-scale sampling campaign, the forces should continue to review and collect samples in areas that are likely to be missed and at the same time speed up the completion of testing as soon as possible to ensure that over 95% of the sampled population is compared with the planning. The remaining localities that have not yet implemented sampling for testing need to prepare human resources and materials to promptly deploy within 1-2 days. For areas under lockdown where it is to check the strict implementation of Directive 16 of the Prime Minister, samples must be taken for testing in accordance with regulations every 3 days by PCR pooling samples.
The positive cases by rapid tests should urgently be taken by PCR confirmation to soon put them in quarantine for treatment. Localities with home isolation of F1 or concentrated quarantine areas of F1 need to take samples for testing according to regulations. Localities, when detecting cases of fever, cough, shortness of breath, flu, respiratory infection etc. by information of local people or community Covid Teams, must conduct verification and take samples for testing as soon as possible and put into quarantine to separate the source of infection from the community.
People should not be negligent after being tested
Implementing a large-scale testing strategy to pick out F0 cases in the community, in recent days, the number of new infections in Binh Duong has continuously increased at a high level. Specifically, after 15 days of conducting extensive screening tests, the whole province detected more than 12,500 people suspected of having Covid-19 out of a total of 1,286 thousand people sampled, accounting for 0.98%. Currently the samples are being sent to confirm RT-PCR tests.
According to Dr. Nguyen Hong Chuong, Director of Department of Health, in recent days, the health sector together with localities have implemented a large-scale testing strategy to pick out F0 to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the community. The sampling plan has been carried out several times for every 3 days in the "red zones" with very high risk such as Thuan An city, Di An city, Thu Dau Mot city, and Tan Uyen town. In high-risk localities, sampling is carried out every 5 days, while low-risk localities some samples are taken every 7 days.
Recently, many people in the locality have been neglecting to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic when the results of community screening are available.
The negative Covid-19 test results only have a certification effect at the time of testing. Those people are negligent and do not take measures to prevent and control the epidemic according to the "5K" message of Ministry of Health will risk becoming F0 . Therefore, even though each citizen has a negative test result for Covid-19, they still have to strictly follow the "5K" message and form a habit of wearing mask, keeping a distance, and disinfecting hands etc. to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
When people have symptoms of respiratory illness such as fever, cough, sore throat, chest tightness, difficulty breathing, etc. or suspect that they have been in contact with a person suspected of having Covid-19, they must immediately contact the nearest medical facility for guidance on implementation of Covid-19 prevention and control according to regulations.
Reported by Kim Ha - Translated by Vi Bao
