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OPINION article

Front. Public Health, 16 June 2022
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 10 - 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.790370

Confronting Rapid Reemergence of COVID-19 in Metropolitans of Vietnam: Updated Vietnam's Policies and Response Measures

\nAnh Minh LeAnh Minh Le1Nam Gia DaoNam Gia Dao1Carl A. LatkinCarl A. Latkin2Linh Gia Vu, Linh Gia Vu3,4*Vu Anh Trong Dam,Vu Anh Trong Dam3,4Giang Thu VuGiang Thu Vu5Cyrus S. H. HoCyrus S. H. Ho6Roger C. M. Ho,Roger C. M. Ho6,7
  • 1Institute of Health Economics and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam
  • 2Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States
  • 3Institute for Global Health Innovations, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam
  • 4Faculty of Medicine, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam
  • 5Center of Excellence in Evidence-Based Medicine, Nguyen Tat Thanh University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
  • 6Department of Psychological Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 7Institute for Health Innovation and Technology (iHealthtech), National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnam was considered one of the most vulnerable countries to the pandemic crisis due to its long border with other countries, especially China, dense population, and limited medical infrastructure. Yet, with a national response plan consisting of strict anti-epidemic measures being timely introduced and rigorous early implementation, Vietnam has managed to keep the number of cases at just over 1,500 among a population of ~100 million people at the end of 2020, second among the countries with the most effective response to the pandemic (1).

As new strains of the virus [including Delta variant B.1.617 and Alpha variant B.1.1.7 with 50–70% higher transmission capacity compared to the original strain (2)] continue to emerge and threaten even the countries with a high percentage of people being vaccinated, the challenges posed for Vietnam as the fourth wave of COVID-19 are much greater than before. Instead of mostly isolated cases as in 2020, the current reemergence of COVID-19 involves cases escalating in number at a pace never seen before, forming large clusters that spread quickly from district to district, then city to city. One of the main case clusters in the current wave of COVID-19 in Vietnam is found in industrial zones, where workers crowded in poorly ventilated factories, canteens, and living quarters near their factories. The rapid level of spread is demonstrated at Hosiden Bac Giang Company, with nearly 1,000 infected workers out of 4,800 (3). Another rapidly expanding cluster of cases involves a religious group meeting that draws a large number of participants, resulting in an outbreak that spread quickly into the community, resulting in a partial lockdown of Ho Chi Minh City and a number of provinces. These clusters pose a significant challenge to the government in terms of activity control, tracing, zoning, and isolating work. With nearly 65% of COVID-19 identified cases in the fourth wave have no clinical symptoms in the first 10 days (10), it is difficult to detect positive cases based on screening, making it more likely to occur outbreaks in the surrounding community (10).

Vietnam has made major adjustments across a variety of sectors in response to the fourth wave, as the population and virus strains have changed. Table 1 outlines and compares the variations in each reemergence's characteristics and policies implemented by Vietnam.

TABLE 1
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Table 1. The variations in each COVID-19 reemergence's characteristics and policies implemented by Vietnam.

Vietnam has significantly increased its testing capacity and immunization coverage during the fourth outbreak. Following the efforts during the third wave to improve testing, the Ministry of Health continues to allow 10–16 samples to be pooled in one test. It is confirmed that combining many samples in one test is completely feasible and accurate with high sensitivity and specificity (11). This method also enables health workers to test more individuals with the same amount of resources (11), allowing the Ministry of Health to promote testing at optimal costs. From April 29th to June 1st, 1,374,503 samples have been tested for a total of 2,703,103 people (12). The testing capacity at hospitals has gone up by 1.7 times compared to the peak of the second epidemic (13).

In early March, nationwide training for health workers was set up to organize the COVID-19 vaccination campaign (14). Nearly 23% of the population over the age of 18 had received at least one dose of vaccine by August 30th (15), with a normal response rate of about 30% after vaccination, lower than the report (16). According to the plan, Vietnam will vaccinate 75 million people in 2021, making it the largest vaccination campaign ever (17).

Maintaining present measures, particularly stakeholders engagement and community mobilization, are critical in the fight against COVID-19. While the military has been in charge of managing the isolation centers from the beginning of the pandemic, the interdisciplinary task force set up contacts tracing to stop community spread. The media agencies were constantly updating information about the pandemic situation to the public. Although Vietnam has only 98 million people, social platforms have sent ~20 billion warning messages about measures to prevent epidemics. It is also vital to maintain introducing social security packages in these challenging times, which had a profound impact by supporting people, enterprises, and organizations to survive, especially in the time of social isolation (18).

Disease control criteria must remain fundamental, and it is up to each locality to develop adaptation plans to the outbreak. Some provinces can continue to isolate F0 from the community, others combine quarantines in a narrow area with an increase in vaccination rates. For the COVID-19 pandemic, ministries, branches, and local governments must have explicit and detailed instructions for implementation and control (19). Moreover, strategies must be flexible and adapt to each wave of the pandemic.

Author Contributions

AL, ND, CL, and CH: conceptualization. LV, VD, and GV: data curation. ND, LV, and VD: formal analysis. CL, CH, and RH: supervision. AL, ND, VD, CL, and RH: writing—original draft. AL, LV, GV, CH, and RH: writing—review and editing. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Funding

This research was supported by Gia Lam Urban Development and Investment Company Limited, Vingroup, and supported by Vingroup Innovation Foundation (VINIF) (Grant No. VINIF.2020.COVID-19.DA03). The article process charge of this paper was supported by NUS Department of Psychological Medicine (R-177-000-100-001, R-177-000-003-001, and R177000702733) and NUS iHeathtech Other Operating Expenses (R-722-000-004-731).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the VINGROUP, Ministry of Health, Hanoi Department of Health, Vietnam Young Physician Association, Hanoi Medical University, National University of Singapore, and the research collaborator.

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Keywords: COVID-19, response, policy, measures, collaboration

Citation: Le AM, Dao NG, Latkin CA, Vu LG, Dam VAT, Vu GT, Ho CSH and Ho RCM (2022) Confronting Rapid Reemergence of COVID-19 in Metropolitans of Vietnam: Updated Vietnam's Policies and Response Measures. Front. Public Health 10:790370. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.790370

Received: 06 October 2021; Accepted: 24 January 2022;
Published: 16 June 2022.

Edited by:

Jonathan Ling, University of Sunderland, United Kingdom

Reviewed by:

Shu Su, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China
Anna Vittoria Mattioli, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

Copyright © 2022 Le, Dao, Latkin, Vu, Dam, Vu, Ho and Ho. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Linh Gia Vu, vugialinh@duytan.edu.vn

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.