The detection was confirmed after the five returned to Ho Chi Minh City on board four flights from the United States, Turkey, and South Sudan.

Among the five cases, two Vietnamese citizens on board flight VN99 from the US to Ho Chi Minh City on December 21 were later found to be positive. This is in addition to one flight attendant who was on flight TK162 from Turkey on December 22, one on flight JL759, and one on flight QR970 from South Sudan.

The patients’ samples were subsequently sent to the Pasteur Institute for genome sequencing, with the results coming back positive for the variant.

At present, they all remain in stable health, with their second test results coming back negative after five to seven days.

Furthermore, a total of 305 passengers traveling on flights alongside the Omicron cases were also put into swift isolation in line with the Government’s regulations and have all since tested negative for the virus.

This comes after 15 entrants returning to Hanoi from abroad were confirmed to be infected with the Omicron variant.

In a bid to curb the potential spread of the new variant, the Ministry of Health has requested that localities and designated agencies intensify the supervision and management of arrivals from other countries. This should be done alongside efforts to enhance surveillance in the community to quickly detect and localise any suspect cases as soon as possible.

Source: VOV