TheCable

The Vietnamese government says all the 16 patients who were infected with coronavirus in the country have recovered.

Vu Duc Dam, the country’s deputy prime minister, was quoted as saying all the infected patients, including the oldest who is 73, had been cured and discharged from the hospital.

He said the government did not detect any new case of the infection in the last 15 days.

Although he admitted that the situation remains unpredictable, Dam said the country has won the first round of the virus.

“If fighting COVID-19 has been a war, then we have won the first round but not the entire war because the situation can be very unpredictable,” he said.

Nguyen Long, Vietnam’s deputy minister of health, said there is no medication for the virus, but added that fundamental principle has bee helpful.

He said doctors are required to treat the symptoms, like fever, and the patients should be placed on a strict, nutritious diet.

Long also said there should be a close monitoring of the oxygen saturation level in the blood of the patients.

“There’s no medication for this virus yet. We rely on fundamental principles,” he said.

Kidong Park, World Health Organization representative in Vietnam, attributed the success to the government’s “proactiveness and consistency throughout the response”.

Vietnam’s novel coronavirus case began when two Chinese nationals were found to be the first cases in Ho Chi Minh City on January 23.

The country officially declared the coronavirus an epidemic on February 1, when the number of cases in the country rose to six.

There has been confirmed cases of coronavirus in over 50 countries, including Nigeria. The virus has already killed at least 3,000 persons with 83,000 infected.

Some researchers at the Migal Galilee Research Institute (MIGAL) in Israel said they have developed an effective vaccine against avian coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) and will soon create a human vaccine against coronavirus (COVID-19).