Vietnam Quarantines Area with 10,000 Residents over Coronavirus

More than 10,000 citizens were put under quarantine in villages near Vietnam's capital Thursday after six cases of the deadly new coronavirus were identified there, officials said.

The Son Loi farming area about 40 km from Hanoi will be locked down for 20 days in the first widespread quarantine outside of China since the virus appeared there in late December, the health ministry announced.

Checkpoints were built around the six villages that make up Son Loi, an AFP team said in the outskirts of the district of Binh Xuyen.

Health officials wearing protective equipment covered cars with disinfectant. Police warned people who wanted to join the quarantined region that they would not be able to leave, while they were allowed in.

The order comes after five people have been infected with the virus, the health ministry announced. The Sixth Event was announced later.

They all originated from a female worker who was sent to Wuhan in central China - where the virus originated - for training. 

The disease then spread to her family and her neighbours, including a three-month-old baby. 

So far, only the female worker has fully recovered and been discharged from the hospital, according to updates from the ministry, while the others remain in a "stable" condition.

'Cannot get out'

The Son Loi area of roughly 1,000 hectares is made up of farmland. Many of the 10,600 residents also commute to nearby factories for short-term labour jobs.

Villager Tran Van Minh told AFP that officials had already urged them to avoid large-scale events, though the outbreak cluster in his village potentially started last week as a consequence of the Tet Lunar New Year festivities.

"The woman infected her family and neighbours after Tet visits," he said, adding that he and his family remain in good health. 

But "life has been badly affected," he told AFP by phone, adding that much of the labour force is reliant on jobs in construction and house painting. 

"Now we cannot get out and even if we do, clients don't welcome us that much as before." 

Son Loi officials started handing out face masks after the Tet holiday finished on 30 January. Children and the elderly have since been largely confined to their families.

Minh said he was not worried about running out of food, but he hoped "the epidemic will end soon."

More than 1,350 people have died in China from the virus, and nearly 60,000 others have been infected since it was first detected in Hubei province in December.

Although thousands have healed, doctors and pharmaceutical companies are working to develop a vaccination and cure to better target the infection-though health experts warn it could be months before it's readily available.

China has imposed unprecedented quarantines across Hubei, locking in about 56 million people, in a bid to stop it spreading.

Tens of millions of others in cities far from the epicentre are also enduring travel restrictions. 

The virus has also had massive ramifications globally, with many countries banning travellers from China in a bid to stop people spreading the disease.

Vietnam, which shares China's porous border, has 16 reported coronavirus cases including those in Son Loi.

It had banned all flights to and from mainland China in a bid to stop the virus from spreading.

It also revoked fresh tourist visas for Chinese citizens or tourists who had spent the last two weeks in China.

Source: AFP