Vietnam to deploy troops in province to contain surge in Covid cases
Southeast Asia saw a decline in new Covid-19 cases and deaths on Friday, after three successive days of increases, collated data showed.
Asean countries reported 87,340 new cases, less than Thursday’s 91,362, while 1,845 patients died, lower than the previous day's 2,188.
The number of Covid-19 cases in the region crossed 9.74 million and the death toll rose to 216,709.
Vietnam’s government said on Thursday it would deploy troops in the industrial Binh Duong province, a major manufacturing hub of the country, to help contain an expected 50,000 additional coronavirus infections over the next two weeks. Binh Duong is a neighbouring province of the virus epicentre, Ho Chi Minh City, and has so far recorded 81,000 cases, a third of which were detected in the past week. Provincial authorities are preparing for a worst-case scenario within which cases could exceed 150,000. Some 2,000 troops will be sent to the province to support the fight against the virus along with 50 mobile medical stations and 15 ambulances.
Meanwhile, Cambodia’s government said that it had administered at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccines to 10.07 million people, or 63 per cent of its 16-million population. Of them, 8.13 million had got two doses.
Cambodia began its vaccination drive in February, aiming to inoculate 12 million people, or 75 per cent of the total population, by the end of this year in order to build herd immunity. Most of the vaccines used in the country's immunisation programme are China's Sinovac and Sinopharm.
