Weekly COVID-19 update: VN confirms 31 new cases, 21 recoveries

The latest cases include Turkish national and three Belarusian citizens. The rest are Vietnamese, of whom 12 were brought home from Russia, four from Japan, five from UAE, two from the RoK, two from Saudi Arabia, two from Ukraine.

Over the past week, 21 patients were declared free of the virus, raising the total number of recoveries to 1,241. The number of death related to the disease remained at 35 while none of the current patients is in critical health condition.

As many as 19,992 people who had close contact with COVID-19 patients or entered Viet Nam from pandemic-hit regions are currently quarantined nationwide, including 209 in hospitals, 15,593 in concentrated quarantine establishments and the remainders at their residences.

The country began recruiting volunteers for the first phase of the human trials of Nanocovax, a made-in-Viet Nam COVID-19 vaccine from December 10. The clinical trials will start from December 17.

The vaccine is developed by the Nanogen Pharmaceutical Biotechnology company, one of four local vaccine producers./.

By Kim Loan