VietNamNet Bridge – Inspectors have found many violations in technical injection process, vaccine preservation and safety regulations during their recent inspection of overall vaccination process at 30 provinces and cities nation-wide.

A health worker injects vaccine for a baby at the Children's Hospital 2 in HCM City. (Source: VNA)

Violations included no consulting rooms in vaccination areas in some localities; keeping vaccines and other medicines in drug stores; unequal skills of consulting staffs at vaccination sites.

In recent instructions for vaccinations by the Ministry of Health, a vaccination site should not receive more than 50 children in a regular vaccination shift in order to ensure reasonable consulting times for parents and to keep children numbers under 30 to ensure vaccination safety.

Hanoi Preventive Medicine Centre Director Nguyen Nhat Cam said a vaccination site in the city usually received an average number of 138 children daily.

With that number of children, medical staff just gave a quick question and answer consultancy and most children left right after vaccinations due to communal health clinics not having enough beds to supervise children post vaccination, according to Cam.

Cam said that the city would expand vaccination times from one to three days to handle shortcomings.

Inspection results from 100 of 577 vaccination sites in Hanoi showed nearly 28 percent with violations relating to unreasonable arrangement of vaccination areas, more than 37 percent with violations relating to injection skills and nearly 27 percent with violations of vaccine stores.

Chief Inspector of the northern Hai Phong City's Health Department Nguyen Dinh Trinh said that inspection results showed all medical units met standards and regulations on using vaccines for immunisation. However, Trinh said, 17 percent of units did not meet the demands of minimum conditions of materials and facilities.

In Hai Phong, two medical units were suspended because their licence for trading vaccines and biological products were out of date.

The Central Quang Tri Province's Health Department reported that all vaccination units had met conditions on facilities, infrastructure and vaccination processes.

However, National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology Director Nguyen Tran Hien said that many violations had been found in vaccination processes in the Huong Hoa General Hospital where three newborns died after vaccination in mid July.

Head of the Preventive Medicine Department Nguyen Van Binh said the ministry had sent vaccine samples relating to the accidents in Huong Hoa Hospital to the National Institute for Verification of Vaccine and Biological Products for testing. The samples have also been tested by an independent laboratory in the United Kingdom with support of the World Health Organisation.

Source: Vietnam Plus