Health workers rush to take COVID-19 samples in Bac Giang

Right after arriving in Bac Giang on May 15, they were divided into ten groups to collected samples from all workers at Crystal Martin and Lens Technology – foreign invested companies – both located at Quang Chau Industrial Park in Bac Giang’s Viet Yen District.

As of Sunday morning, the health workers collected 11,000 samples from the two companies.

They planned to collect 3,500 samples from other companies at the industrial parks on Sunday morning.

All the samples will be sent to the hospital to test for COVID-19, using the real-time polymerase chain reaction technology.

Viet Nam confirmed 1,085 domestic cases in 26 provinces and cities since April 27, 2021 when the fourth wave of local transmissions began, in which Bac Giang was hit hardest with 314 cases.

Bac Giang is one of the localities with limited testing capacity, thus Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Saturday called on other localities, including Ha Noi and Quang Ninh to provide support and assistance to quickly stamp out the COVID-19 outbreaks there.

According to Deputy Minister of Health Do Xuan Tuyen, Viet Nam has 175 laboratories capable of conducting 66,000 samples per day, using the RT-PCR technology.

The daily capacity could be increased to 290,000 samples if necessary and 2.9 million samples in case of pool testing (which means combining respiratory samples from five or ten people in one laboratory test to detect SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19, Do said.

All localities are now capable of conducting RT-PCR tests but 12 out of 63 cities and provinces nationwide can’t perform confirmatory tests, Do added./.

By Quang Minh