The biggest vaccination campaign in Vietnam

According to Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long, 70% of Vietnam's adult population, equivalent to 150 million doses of vaccine, will be injected.

"This Covid-19 vaccination campaign has the largest scale in the history of vaccination in our country," Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said at a meeting to implement the nationwide Covid-19 vaccine campaign. , the afternoon of June 15.

This is the largest vaccination implementation plan in history when Vietnam has successfully negotiated over 120 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in 2021, from Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZenneca,...

Including about a million doses donated by Japan on June 16, Vietnam received nearly 4 million doses of the vaccine. Dang Duc Anh, Director of the Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, this morning also said that by the end of June or early July, Vietnam could receive more than a million doses of the vaccine from Covax Facility.

It is expected that in the third quarter of this year, about 2 million doses of AstraCeneca vaccine will return to Vietnam, in addition to 3 million doses of Pfizer. However, the time the vaccine is shipped to Vietnam may be changed. Upcoming vaccine sources are also uncertain in terms of supply and quantity.

As of June 15, Vietnam has vaccinated over 1.55 million people with nearly 60,000 people having received 2 doses. The number of people who have been vaccinated (one dose) is equivalent to 2.1% of those who are indicated for vaccination.

Vietnam needs to vaccinate 70% of the population 18 years and older to achieve herd immunity, equivalent to 150 million doses.

Minister Long analyzed that, unlike previous times, Vietnam has experienced in this vaccination campaign. Most recently, Vietnam has successfully organized a campaign to immunize children with 23 million doses of measles - rubella vaccine. However, because the scale of this campaign is much larger, it requires the participation of ministries and sectors.

"We will set up 8 storage warehouses, of which one is at the Capital Military Region Command and 7 at 7 Military Regions nationwide so that when the vaccine arrives at the airport, it is immediately transported to these warehouses for safekeeping. All warehouses must meet Good Storage Practices (GSP), from which refrigerated trucks transport vaccines to vaccination sites across the country," said Mr. Long.

Minister Long suggested that from now on, it is necessary to quickly set up these warehouses, re-check factors related to logistics, cold chain systems, etc. to ensure the criteria for vaccine preservation in a way safe.

According to the Minister, all vaccination points this time form an online vaccination network, through the application of information technology will publicize information about the number of people injecting, the number of doses of vaccine used.

Vietnam needs to accelerate the application of electronic health books, registration of vaccinations via apps and text messages. From there, it is easier to manage vaccine passport records.

Vaccination points will be strictly controlled on the online vaccination operating system instead of previously assigned to management units. Vietnam has prepared more than 15,000 vaccination workers, built a vaccination map, and made it public to the entire population about the process, number of doses and number of people vaccinated.

Mr. Long said that the entire injection process has been reviewed to make it shorter, but still adhere to "inject as far as it is safe".

The Ministry of National Defense will lead the vaccination campaign, with the participation of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Ministry of Transport...

For the national defense and police health systems, the Minister of Health asked to continue training at the whole line on safe vaccination, especially the military forces trained more on the process of transporting and storing vaccines.

"We must ensure that the entire professional process from transportation and storage to injection and injection organization is safe," the minister reiterated.

(VNexpress)