COVID-19 lessons from Vietnam’s success

Lockdowns with vigorous testing methods helped Vietnam to stay afloat. One of the effective measures that Vietnam adopted in stopping the spread of COVID-19 virus early in the country was to lock down the country and stop all flights arriving in the country from early March this year.

Vietnam has just 323 cases of COVID19 cases since January and all have recovered and no deaths have been reported since then, said Dr. Sarah Bales of Hanoi School of Public Health speaking on a recent webinar dialogue on the topic of “COVID- 19 Asian Recovery” sponsored by the United Nations Sri Lanka.

She said when COVID-19 cases spread from Wuhan China that formed a cluster of the virus in Vietnam, the police enforced a lockdown and prevented the spread of the disease. The government took strict measures when they found out that two nurses travelling about in the country who had no contact with COVID-19 patients were infected with the virus. The government also found that there were clusters of COVID- 19 virus spreading among the communities. This was quite puzzling as the government had no idea of the origins of COVID-19 virus. What they did was to start contact tracing and testing of people and social distancing that prevented the virus from spreading in the country. That helped to quell the virus.

However by mid- April some of the restrictions placed on the community were lifted and by mid -May all restrictions were lifted. Following this move many schools and Karaoke bars were opened. “It was a quick response and was very effective. What was the underlying reasons and how did Vietnam succeed?” She said Vietnam was prepared technically and logistically following the outbreak of SARS on earlier occasions. Vietnam has many research laboratories and research centres to cope with viruses. These organisations were mobilized during the COVID- 19 pandemic to trace the virus by conducting several tests. Social distancing, wearing of masks have helped Vietnam to stay afloat, she added.

Director General of Health Services, Dr. Anil Jasinghe said that Sri Lanka took steps to bring back most Sri Lankans living in foreign countries.

According to data, around 40,000 Sri Lankans are found to be living overseas. “We found that 643 arrivals in Sri Lanka had the COVID- 19 virus. We moved them into institutionalised quarantine to avert the spread of the virus in the community. Our initial response was to prevent the virus from entering the country but ultimately the virus came into the country. But the timely action taken by the government prevented a catastrophic situation,” he said adding that around 30 hospitals in the country treat COVID-19 patients.

Drawing comparisons with Vietnam, Dr. Jasinghe said that they had the expertise to deal with viruses owing to an outbreak of diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in earlier years.

Answering a question from the panel, Dr. Jasinghe said that it was prudent for health authorities to target vulnerable people for PCR testing. “We did not want to conduct liberal testing like in other countries but testing was based on targeted testing. Research on the COVID- 19 virus is also being conducted in collaboration with Ayurvedic, a traditional indigenous practice, he added.