A medical worker takes a sample of a man in northern Hai Duong Province for COVID-19 testing. COVID-19 vaccination priority will be given to the province - Vietnam’s largest outbreak at present. — VNA/VNS Photo

Long chaired a teleconference on Saturday connecting 700 places across Vietnam to launch the vaccination plan and provide related training for medical workers nationwide in the use and storage of the vaccine, as well as the treatment of post-injection complications.

He said the vaccination programme will start on Monday (March 8), although the first batch of vaccine had arrived in Vietnam on February 24.

“As the vaccine is new, we need to carry out thorough checks,” Long said, adding that Vietnam had to obtained an accreditation certificate from the producer and reassess the safety index of the batch.

Because of the limited number of vaccines, the ministry cannot allocate to all 63 provinces and cities, but for 13 pandemic-hit localities, with priority given to northern Hai Duong Province – Vietnam’s largest outbreak at present, he added.

The minister asked localities which have yet to receive the vaccine to prepare training programmes as the ministry will allocate vaccines to them when more arrive in March.

COVAC and AstraZeneca have agreed to provide 30 million doses each for Vietnam this year, the minister said, adding the ministry asked the producers to hand over the vaccines to Vietnam before September and is negotiating with Pfizer to buy an additional 30 million doses from this producer.

The ministry has assigned three deputy ministers to be responsible for directing the vaccinations as this kind of vaccine is injected for the first time and injected for adults.

Vietnam will conduct screening check-ups before injections to ensure safety, although the process takes more time. The first injections will be given to people working on the front line including health staff, army, police, customs and immigration personnel.

People getting the shots will be monitored via digital health records and receive e-certificates for their completion of inoculation.  

Priority list for receiving vaccine

According to HCM City Department of Health, frontline health workers, non-medical personnel who are potentially exposed to COVID-19 patients and samples and police and military personnel will be the first to get vaccines in the city.

Last Friday it submitted to the Ministry of Health’s general department of preventive medicine its COVID-19 vaccination priority list.

More than 44,000 people will be vaccinated now, including 2,270 health workers, 388 contact tracing personnel and 1,362 people in COVID-19 surveillance groups.

The rest include 600 army personnel, 1,042 police officers, 513 personnel at government-designated quarantine facilities, 38,000 individuals in community groups for COVID-19 monitoring, prevention, and control.  VNS

Vietnam striving to be self-sufficient in COVID-19 vaccines

Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long has said that Vietnam will focus on the research and production of homegrown COVID-19 vaccines alongside imports, viewing this as a long-term strategy.