A health worker collects sample for COVID-19 testing. (Photo: VNA) With the downgrade, based on Point bof Clause 1 and Clause 2 of Article 3 in the 2007 Law on Prevention and Controlof Infectious Diseases, COVID-19 prevention and control activities will becarried out in line with the regulations on Group B ones.
On January 29, 2020, the MoH classified the coronavirus disease 2019 as a GroupA infectious disease.
According to the 2007 law, Group A comprisesparticularly dangerous infectious diseases that can spread very fast and on alarge scale and have a high mortality rate or unclear causes. Meanwhile, GroupB covers the infectious diseases that can spread fast and cause death.
Recently, Deputy Prime Minister TranHong Ha signed a decision amending an appendix that regulates the incubationperiod and the required period of no new infections to serve as the basis for declaringend to an infectious disease outbreak. This appendix accompanies the PrimeMinister’s Decision No 02/2016/QD-TTg, dated January 28, 2016, on theconditions to declare an outbreak and end to an outbreak of an infectiousdisease.
In the amended appendix, COVID-19 is aGroup B infectious disease which has an incubation period of four days. Thetime with no new cases needed to declare an outbreak end is eight days. The earlier regulations put the respectiveperiods at 14 days and 28 days.
Thereduction of the periods was based on the scientific ground, the currentsituation of the pandemic, and recommendations from the World HealthOganisation (WHO) and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sincethe pandemic broke out, Vietnam has undergone four waves of COVID-19 infectionswith 11,624,065 cases, ranking 13th among 231 countries and territories.With an average of 117,470 cases per 1 million people, it ranks 120th in this regard.
Amongthe infections, it has recorded 10,640,953 recoveries and 43,206 deaths,accounting for 0.4% of the total.
Thecountry has administered 266,532,582 doses of COVID-19 vaccine so far,statistics show./.
VNA
