HCMC – The HCMC Department of Health on June 12 asked general and specialized hospitals in the city to get prepared to coordinate with hospitals assigned to receive Covid-19 patients.
The department sent an urgent document to both public and private hospitals, asking them to get ready for the admission of inpatients from the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Cu Chi District Hospital and Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital while these hospitals focus on the treatment of Covid-19 patients, the local media reported.
Patients should not be transferred to Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital, except for those diagnosed with tuberculosis, and hospitals must hold consultations with Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital before the transfer.
Hospitals were also asked to send doctors and nurses to the Cu Chi Field Hospital, the Can Gio Covid-19 Treatment Hospital and the Cu Chi Covid-19 Treatment Hospital when required.
They must also prepare vehicles, equipment and tools for the treatment and recuperation at the hospitals assigned to receive Covid-19 patients.
According to the HCMC Department of Health, the pandemic is showing extremely complicated developments in the city. Hospitals under the department have received more than 700 Covid-19 patients and the figure will continue increasing in the coming periods.
The department informed that the Cu Chi Covid-19 Treatment Hospital and the Covid-19 treatment unit of Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital had been put into operation.
The two will mobilize medical workers from the departments of infection control, emergency and recuperation of hospitals in the city.
The HCMC Department of Health issued the urgent document after 22 employees of the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases, a key hospital providing Covid-19 treatment in the city, were infected with Covid-19 and the hospital is under lockdown.
The 22 cases, including 15 employees of the hospital’s administrative unit and seven IT staff, were detected after the hospital tested its employees and inpatients. Meanwhile, 63 inpatients and 80 other medical workers in charge of Covid-19 treatment at the hospital tested negative.
These medical workers are provided with isolated accommodations and they have not met with the employees of other units in the hospital.
All the employees of the hospital have got two shots of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, but some of them have been still infected with the coronavirus. Explaining the case, Doctor Le Quoc Hung, head of Cho Ray Hospital’s Tropical Disease Department, said the vaccine could not prove its effectiveness immediately.
Those getting enough Covid-19 vaccine injections can be still infected with the virus. The vaccine will prevent them from getting worse if they are infected with Covid-19 and reduce the transmission possibility.
An AstraZeneca representative said the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine had been proved to be effective in preventing Covid-19. Clinical trials showed that 22 days after the first shot, the vaccine can protect vaccinated people from critical conditions and death.
Additionally, within 90 days after the first shot, the efficacy rate of the vaccine is 76% and is maintained until the second shot.
If the gap between the two shots is more than 12 weeks, the vaccine will be 81% effective.
