Clinical features, isolation, and complete genome sequence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 from the first two patients in Vietnam
Phan Trong Lan, Thượng Vũ Nguyễn, Loan K. T. Huynh, Đào Huy Mạnh, Tho A. N. Vo, Nhung H. P. Vu, Hang Pham, Hieu Trung Nguyen, Thuc Tri Nguyen, Hung Quoc Le, Thinh Viet Nguyen, Quan Nguyen, T. Huynh, Sang Ngoc Nguyen, Anh Hoang Nguyen, Ngoc T. Nguyen, Thao N. T. Nguyen, Long Thành Nguyễn, Quang Chấn Lương, Thang M. Cao, Quang Duy Pham
Abstract
In January 2020, we identified two severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-infected patients in a familial cluster with one person coming from Wuhan, China. The complete genome sequences of two SARS-CoV-2 strains isolated from these patients were identical and 99.98% similar to strains isolated in Wuhan. This is genetically suggestive of human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and indicates Wuhan as the most plausible origin of the early outbreak in Vietnam. The younger patient had a mild upper respiratory illness and a brief viral shedding, whereas the elderly with multi-morbidity had pneumonia, prolonged viral shedding, and residual lung damage. The evidence of nonsynonymous substitutions in the ORF1ab region of the viral sequence warrants further studies.