Local people wear masks during a training session given by Thai officials on how to make hygienic hand sanitizing gels from alcohol and chemicals for their families at a school in Bangkok on July 16.

Ho Chi Minh City authorities on Sunday isolated a high school in District 9 after 20 students and a teacher tested positive to H1N1 flu.

This student had visited his home in Viet Kieu Hamlet in Dong Nai Province’s Xuan Loc District, where 23 people had been infected with H1N1 flu, before infecting a teacher and other boarders.

The Health Department held an urgent meeting Sunday and isolated the school, setting up two hospital wards to quarantine suspects of the flu. Doctors from District 9 Hospital were assigned to the school to offer examinations and treatments.

The department also ordered the school to be sprayed with decontaminants. All students and teachers were supplied masks to prevent further infections.

Without urgent intervention, there could be a serious threat of infection to the community, the department said.

The department also listed 160 students and teachers who had direct contact with the patients to be closely monitored.

Doctors from Khanh Hoa General Hospital in the central coastal province of Khanh Hoa confirmed Sunday that a Belgian man was also tested positive for H1N1.

Emmers Tomas, 39, had stayed at an unidentified hotel in Nha Trang Town with his wife, their child and a 12-year-old niece, after arriving in Vietnam on a flight transiting in China.

He was admitted to the hospital on Saturday with high temperature, headache and runny nose, doctors said.

Their child, who later showed flu-like symptoms, is also in quarantine at the hospital, while his wife and the niece were encouraged to have no contact with people.

Meanwhile, Hue city Central Hospital in Thua Thien–Hue Province on Sunday reported they had discharged two overseas Vietnamese from the US after they had fully recovered from influenza A (H1N1), raising the total treated cases here to eight.

Bui Duc Phu, the hospital director, said Sunday they have quarantined three overseas Vietnamese for H1N1, including two from the UK and one from the US. Earlier, 10 others had been cleared after testing negative to the disease.

In its latest report, the Ministry of Health confirmed a total of 383 cases detected in Vietnam so far, 299 of which had been discharged from hospitals.

Reported by Thanh Tung - Lien Chau