Photo: VCG

 Zhengzhou, the capital city of Central China's Henan Province has reported 13 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 50 asymptomatic carriers as of 6 pm on Monday since its first two asymptomatic carriers reported on Friday.

Following gene sequencing, the virus strains of the first two infected persons are highly homologous with confirmed patient who enter China from Myanmar who received treated in the Sixth People's Hospital, a designated hospital for treatment of imported cases, local health official informed on a press conference on Monday night.

Local authorities confirmed on Sunday that the latest COVID-19 outbreak in Zhengzhou was triggered by the Delta variant.

Most infections among the 63 patients in this most recent round of infections in the city are related to the Sixth People's Hospital, a local health official confirmed at a press conference. Some infected individuals have no obvious connection with the hospital, but either live nearby or had been active in the area recently.

The outbreak in the city mainly centers on the hospital, involving cleaners, medical staff and inpatients. The epidemic is showing a rapid dispersion, Wang Songqiang, director of the Zhengzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at press conference on Saturday evening. 

According to Wang, the outbreak of the epidemic resurgence in the city exposed the loopholes of some hospitals in the implementation of infection control.

The city released the recent traces of 35 infections on Monday, among which 34 were related to the Sixth People's hospital, most of them are inpatients, or patient escorts linked to the Tuberculosis complications department in the hospital.

The hospital has finished two rounds of nucleic acid testing for all people in the hospital, according to a Zhengzhou Daily.

All inpatients in quarantine ward, confirmed cases and silent carriers in the hospital has been transferred to Qiboshan Hospital near the city's airport as of Monday, which was built in ten days at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.

The city has launched a citywide nucleic acid testing effort starting from Sunday and expected to be completed by Tuesday. As of 6 pm on Monday, 9.8 million samples have been collected, accounting for 92.29 percent of people required to get tested. 1.4 million samples have already been processed.  .

The national joint epidemic prevention and control mechanism has sent a working group led by senior officials from the national health commission and the Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention to Zhengzhou, to guide the epidemic management response and oversee medical treatment of infected patients.

Zhengzhou has been challenged by severe rainfall and floods recently, leading to 292 deaths as of 6 pm on Sunday with at least 47 still reported as missing.