A mother and her two children arrived in Ho Chi Minh City from the US carrying H1N1 virus last Saturday, raising the total number of infections in the country to 13, the city’s Health Department reported Sunday.

Dr. Phan Van Nghiem from the department said the newly-arrived patients had transited in Hong Kong and arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport with high temperatures before being admitted to Ho Chi Minh City Children’s Hospital No. 1 where they tested positive to virus H1N1.

The father and another sibling, who both took the same flight, were also quarantined, he said.

The two recently-recovered patients are 41-year-old Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong and her nine-year-old son, Nguyen Hoang Huy, who had arrived in Vietnam on May 26 from Arizona, US.

Vietnam’s first H1N1 flu case was that of 23-year-old student Le Quang Tuan, who had returned to Ho Chi Minh City from the US on May 31. He was released from the hospital last week.

Health authorities Sunday quarantined 10 passengers arriving at Tan Son Nhat International Airport with temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius. Subsequent tests cleared four of them while test results were not yet available for the other six, who remain under quarantine.

Nearly 6,800 passengers arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport Sunday, 5,166 of which came from infected zones.

Source: TN, VNA