Thread: Vietnam determined to save British pilot, avoid its first COVID-19 death

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam has mounted an all-out effort to save the life of its most critically ill coronavirus patient, a British pilot who works for Vietnam Airlines, the national carrier.

Through aggressive testing and a mass, centralised quarantine programme, the Southeast Asian country has kept its tally of coronavirus cases to just 288 and has reported no deaths.


Little expense has been spared to try save the life of the 43-year-old man, identified only as “Patient 91”, who caught the coronavirus at a bar in the southern business hub of Ho Chi Minh City in mid-March, state media reported.


More than 4,000 people connected to the cluster were tested, with 18 of them found to be infected with the coronavirus.


While most have recovered, the British pilot is on life support and his condition has deteriorated significantly.


On Tuesday, the health ministry held a meeting with experts from top hospitals and decided that the only way to save the man’s life was a lung transplant.

His case has garnered national interest in Vietnam, where the government has won broad support for its campaign to contain the coronavirus.


On Thursday, state media said 10 people, including a 70-year-old military veteran, had volunteered as lung donors, but had been turned down by state doctors.


“We are touched by their good intentions, but current regulations don’t allow us to transplant lungs donated by most living people,” a representative of the Vietnam National Coordinating Centre for Human Organ Transplantation (VNHOT) told the Tuoi Tre newspaper.


The patient has just 10% of his lung capacity left and has been on life support for more than 30 days, Tuoi Tre said.


Deputy health minister Nguyen Truong Son told media last month that Vietnam had imported specialist medicine from overseas to treat blood clots in the patient, but to no avail.


Vietnam has spent more than 5 billion dong ($200,000) trying to save him, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.

Vietnam determined to save British pilot, avoid its first COVID-19 death - Reuters

He is a goner and will be the first Viet death. Sad to hear and may he rest in peace.

Originally Posted by bsnub

He is a goner and will be the first Viet death

that you hear about.

10% lung function?

Good on them for trying to save him, but doesnt sound good.

I think he's better off staying there than returning to blighty. Good luck anyway.

He's the national carrier?

Originally Posted by sabang

I think he's better off staying there than returning to blighty. Good luck anyway.

It doesn't sound like he'd even last the journey.

Originally Posted by TheRealKW

10% lung function?

Good on them for trying to save him, but doesnt sound good.

Could be the Viets are doing all they can to save him, not for his life but because they want the prestige of holding onto a zero death toll with his life as a secondary consideration.

Let's hope there are no C19 deaths in the meantime, because there goes the cherry, motivation, and with him soon to follow.

The more important story that we conveniently missed is the manner in which how the Minh handled and managed the Cootie Apocalypse successfully.
Similar to numerous Asian countries which tends to be brushed aside throughout most of the Western press....naturally.

All the while, Europe and North America struggle to figure which way is up.

Assuming he is otherwise healthy as a 43 y/o commercial pilot would need to be, a lung transplant seems the only viable option. C19 autopsies have shown massive pulmonary emboli.