Medical staff spray disinfectants in Giếng Mứt Alley, Hai Bà Trưng District, Hà Nội.

HÀ NỘI — A leading expert from the COVID-19 International Task Force said “Việt Nam has had a very strong response” to the pandemic in reply to a question on why the number of infection cases has been kept low in the country.

Dr Barbara Marston, COVID-19 International Task Force Lead at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said there were many different factors that contribute to Việt Nam’s low number. But “they are certainly related to the quality of responses."

She made the comment at a telephonic press briefing on Wednesday on the CDC’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Asia and co-ordination efforts with national governments in the region.

Responding to a reporter’s question on the efforts of Việt Nam in containing COVID-19, Dr John MacArthur, the CDC Thailand country director, said the CDC team in Việt Nam is working quite closely with the Vietnamese Government and they believe that the Vietnamese Government is doing a good job.

“The public health system in Việt Nam is very strong. The Government at the highest level took this seriously, and has really taken a whole-of-government approach to the response, and I think that’s why we’re seeing some successes in Việt Nam.”

“The Government has been building the disease detectives that are necessary to do the on-the-ground contact tracing, really, the public health heavy lifting that’s necessary to get this epidemic, pandemic under control, and that they’ve got some strong laboratories.”

The CDC team in Việt Nam is working very closely with counterparts from the health ministry on many aspects of this pandemic response, providing technical assistance in the areas of surveillance, data analysis, laboratory testing, doing investigations, contact tracing, he said.

As of Thursday morning, Việt Nam recorded 268 COVID-19 cases while many other neighbouring countries like Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia have witnessed more than 5,000 cases.

Việt Nam’s daily increase of infection cases in the latest week remained below five cases.

The Government is continuing a social distancing policy in high-risk localities along with other national-scale measures like quarantine and limiting immigration.