What We Already Know

• The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost all countries in the world.
• Rapid response is and was needed to prevent a pan-

demic in Vietnam.

• IPC measures are of greatest importance to prevent

What This Article Adds

• A better understanding and prevention on an acute pandemic in a low and middle income
• The need for a strategic plan with budget from start

and that all different authorities work together even on local level.

• Why early quarantine of potential infected is of great

importance.

The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease-2019) pandemic has affected almost all countries in the world. It happened rap- idly in the context of not knowing which public health strate- gies and drugs could be used to control the pandemic. Each country had to struggle the pandemic by itself and folllow

WHO general guidelines and warnings. When the first cases were reported from Hubei, China in late December 2019, the Vietnamese authorities acknowledged the potential risk of an epidemic having had the experience form SARS and the Avian flu. When it was clear that there was human-to-human transmission in the epidemic in Wuhan that started in January, the Vietnamese government, health care system and civil society were rapidly mobilized. After the Chinese and Vietnamese New Year (TET), the border to China was closed and everyone arriving from China was quarantined for two weeks, those with symptoms were tested for SARS-CoV-2, contacts were traced in community, schools, and universities were closed. In the second pandemic phase, many people

1Nguyen Tat Thanh University, Hochiminh, Viet Nam 2Dinh Tien Hoang Institute of Medicine, Hanoi, Viet Nam 3Viet Tiep Hospital, Hai Phong, Viet Nam

4Hanoi University of Public Health, Hanoi, Viet Nam

5Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

Corresponding Author:

Thanh Chi Tran, Nguyen Tat Thanh University, 300A Nguyen Tat Thanh, Hochiminh 75000, Viet Nam.

Email: trchithanh@yahoo.com