Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

Dozens of people have been quarantined including plane passengers who had not even taken off after a British tourist supposedly cured of the COVID-19 disease was suddenly found to be infected after boarding the flight.

The British man had been hospitalised in Danang City in Vietnam,but after being declared free of the virus, he had headed for the flight back home from the country’s Tan Son Nhat Airport.

Local health Department boss Nguyen Tan Binh confirmed late yesterday that the British tourist tested positive shortly before catching the flight at the airport after being discharged from Danang Hospital following treatment for a coronavirus infection.

They said that the 60-year-old man, who was not named, had been admitted to hospital on 8th March and released on the 27th March after testing negative three times.

The said after that he had been quarantined for another two weeks at a hotel in Danang City in line with guidelines issued by the Health Ministry.

He had then flown to Ho Chi Minh City at the end of last week and was tested while staying at an airport hotel while waiting for the flight.

He had actually boarded the flight when the city’s Centre for Diseases Control revealed that the man had tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

China at the heart of the outbreak in February had also confirmed cases where people who appeared to have recovered and tested negative were later found to have tested positive, confounding the popular belief that those who survive would be immune at least in the immediate future from catching the disease again. It is reportedly the first time it has happened in Vietnam.

Vietnamese officials were unable to say why the disease appeared to have reappeared again and said they had ordered officials to investigate where the man might have come into contact with the disease again.

The revelation also meant that officials had to swing into action to quarantine everybody they could find who had been in contact with the British man, including the 22 other people at the Sam Grand Hotel where he had stayed after his release. It also included the unfortunate passengers that sat next to him and immediately in front of him and behind him on the plane when he was on board before being taken off and quarantined.

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