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Vietnamese citizens check in at San Francisco airport before boarding. Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The returned passengers included children aged below 18, the elderly, pregnant women, the sick, workers whose visas and labour contracts expired, students without residences due to dormitory closure and other especially disadvantaged cases.

Preventive measures against COVID-19 were implemented seriously during both flights.

After landing at Noi Bai international airport, the passengers from Japan were put under quarantine in line with regulations.

Ahead of the flight, the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan sent officers to the airport to assist 350 citizens in making check-in procedures and solve arising issues.

The Vietnamese Consulate General in San Francisco also dispatched officials to the airport in an effort to assist the citizens with all necessary measures before they boarded the plane.

However, an elderly man has died on board the flight to bring home Vietnamese citizens left stranded in the US.

The 73-year-old man was said to fall down in the toilet when the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet (about 10 km), 13 hours after departing from San Francisco on July 15 (local time), VOV cited a Vietnam Airlines representative.

Immediately, crew members conducted first aid and called on some passengers with a medical background to provide urgent support. Unfortunately, all rescue efforts were in vain and the passenger died before the aircraft landed at Van Don International Airport in northeastern Quang Ninh province on July 16.

The captain of the flight passed on information about the incident to aviation and health authorities in order to carry out all necessary procedures to transfer the deceased to local authorities.

Upon landing at the airport, all passengers and crew members also had their body temperature checked and were quarantined as regulated.

On board a repatriation flight bringing home Vietnamese citizens left stranded in the United States due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Ministry of Health on July 15 announced it is well prepared to receive 219 Vietnamese guest workers, including 116 people with COVID-19, to be repatriated from the Republic of Equatorial Guinea.

A special flight to evacuate the workers is scheduled to take off in at least 10 days due to difficulty in registration procedures. The ministry will dispatch a contingent of doctors and orderlies to Equatorial Guinea to assist the guest workers on the repatriation flight.

The Ministry of Health on the same day reported the discovery of eight fresh imported cases from Russia confirmed to have contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The newly-detected cases are among 69 Russian experts who boarded IO4405 flight and entered Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on July 11. They were then isolated in the city of Vung Tau and their samples sent to the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City on July 13. Test results on July 14 indicated that 8 cases were positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The latest active cases are in stable health condition and have been transferred to Ba Ria Hospital for medical treatment and quarantine./.

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