Students of the Hai Duong Medical Technical University travel to HCMC to support the city in the fight against Covid-19. Forteen provinces are willing to help HCMC combat the pandemic - PHOTO: VNA

HCMC – As many as 14 cities and provinces are willing to send their medical workers and RT-PCR testing systems to HCMC to help the city fight the raging Covid-19, according to the Ministry of Health.

They include the central provinces of Nghe An and Thanh Hoa and 12 northern provinces, Tuoi Tre Online newspaper reported.

The Ministry of Health has sent an urgent dispatch to provinces nationwide mobilizing available resources to help HCMC stop the uncontrollable spread of Covid.

The ministry has asked the 14 provinces to report the number of medical workers who can make it to HCMC to take samples for Covid-19 testing, conduct tests and treat Covid-19 patients as well as the number of RT-PCR testing machines that they can send to HCMC.

Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son, who leads a special delegation of the Ministry of Health to HCMC, said the ministry was gauging the demand in the city to mobilize outside support.

The ministry might mobilize a maximum of 10,000 medical workers, including 5,000 from central-level hospitals in HCMC.

More than 300 students and lecturers of the Hai Duong Medical Technical University have supported the sample collection and test performance in Binh Thanh and Go Vap districts. They have also supported the performance of RT- PCR tests at labs as appointed by the HCMC Center for Disease Control.

HCMC, which is now the country’s largest coronavirus hotspot, had reported nearly 7,700 Covid cases as of this morning, July 7. The city has come up with multiple solutions to deal with the steady spike in new cases, such as launching a large-scale testing program, quarantining direct contacts of Covid-19 patients at home, closely controlling people entering and exiting the city and preparing for a scenario with 15,000 Covid-19 cases.