About 100 people are being caught every day while illegally crossing through the border in south-western Vietnam.
Major-General Nguyen Xuan Kien, head of the Army Medical Department, said during a press conference on April 9, that they had tightened monitoring and patrolling at quarantine centres during the recent Covid-19 outbreak in Hai Duong Province. They also sent more employees to patrol the borders and checkpoints.
Major-General Nguyen Xuan Kien, head of the Army Medical Department speaks at the press conference on April 9
As of now, over 2,800 students from academies and universities under the Command of the Border Guards have been sent to patrol the borders, raising the total number of border guards to 10,000.
"We found 100 illegal crossers every day along the southwest border. The fishing boats also bring people into Vietnam illegally, some of the passengers have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2," Kien said.
The border guards in Hai Phong City also sent an additional 70 people to Tay Ninh Province to help with patrolling. According to Kien, co-operation between the authorities and the residents has been effective. Many illegal border crossing cases have been reported to the authorities in time.
"The army has set up 175 quarantine centres for 191,363 people in total since the start of the pandemic. Right now, 4,029 people are being quarantined at 55 quarantine centres. We also carried out contact tracing and testing quickly when there was a new outbreak," the official said.
They also provided Covid-19 tests for the border guards and soldiers at the checkpoints. The results for 6,686 samples have come back negative. They also helped dealt with and controlled two outbreaks at Factory Z153 where six people tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and at the Viettel Centre in Dong Trieu District, Quang Ninh Province where one person tested positive for the virus. Immediate directives were also issued out after one Covid-19 case was found at the UN peacekeeping field hospital in South Sudan.
The Army Medical Department is developing immunisation plans among the army after they received 20,000 doses of vaccines in the first phase.
