Vietnam deployed soldiers to the streets of Ho Chi Minh City to help enforce a strict lockdown in the country's biggest urban area and the current epicentre of its worst coronavirus outbreak to date.

After managing to contain Covid-19 for much of last year, Vietnam has recorded a total of 348,000 infections and at least 8,277 fatalities.

Most of those cases have been recorded in Ho Chi Minh City and its surrounding industrial provinces, where the Delta variant of the virus has sent numbers soaring since late April, Reuters reports.

Vietnam implemented movement restrictions in Ho Chi Minh City in early July, but announced its harshest curbs yet last week, as infections have continued to surge. Authorities have said the enforcement of recent curbs had not been sufficiently strict.