HANOI, May 8 (DHA Vietnam) - Organizers of the Home Marathon, Vietnam's first online race, have delivered a special gift to medical workers fighting the pandemic at the country's font line on behalf of participating runners.

The gift, which was made from all the entrance fees worth VND 109 million (nearly USD 4,700) as contributed by participants of the "Home Marathon in Support of White-Blouse Angels to Win the COVID-19 Pandemic", was handed to doctors at the Hanoi-based National Hospital for Tropical Diseases on Friday.

Representatives of the Home Marathon organizing committee, including VPBank, sportswear and sports equipment manufacturer Xtep, Garmin specialized sports watches, hand the cash to the physicians at the Hanoi-basedd National Hospital for Tropical Diseases on May 8, 2020.

Vietnam, which shares a long border with China, has emerged as the early winner of the coronavirus. The government says no new cases of community infection were detected in the past 22 days, partly thanks to an early issued requirement to make all arriving people undergo multiple tests for the virus during their 14-day quarantine.

The Southeast Asian nation has confirmed 288 infections with no fatality since late January when the first patients were confirmed as contracted the virus. As much as 84 percent of the infected people have now been cured.

The high ratio of the cured patients on the total cases, as well as the mass testing conducted so far to ensure the general public is safe, speaks much of the tireless effort spent by Vietnamese medical workers. The initiative to make the donation to Vietnamese doctors was therefore created to support those fighting the pandemic at the country's front line. 

In April the Race Organizing Committees (ROC) of the VPBank Hanoi Marathon ASEAN 2020 launched the online marathon challenge to ensure runners can keep up with their training routine while complying with the government's policy on social distancing. They also made clear that all the runners' entrance fees will be donated to support doctors and medical staff.

Present at the Friday gift handing ceremony were VPBank, the main sponsor of the Hanoi marathon to be held in October 2020, as well as sponsors for the Home Marathon, namely sportswear and sports equipment manufacturer Xtep and Garmin, the producer of specialized sports watches.

Taking this opportunity, the ROC expressed its wish to welcome all Home Marathon runners at the VPBank Hanoi Marathon ASEAN 2020, which is scheduled for October 18, 2020 in Hanoi.