Monthly Japanese Encephalitis Vaccination Benefits 2M Children: Ministry

The Department of Preventive Medicine under the Ministry of Health has said that since 2015 the vaccination against Japanese encephalitis has been officially included into the National Expanded Immunization Program (NEIP) and is conducted monthly, which benefited two million children. Under the Ministry’s decision, instead of immunizing kids according to a fixed timetable, localities will administer the vaccine against Japanese encephalitis for kids along with other vaccines in the program. The schedule for vaccinating Japanese encephalitis includes the first shot will be administered when a kid is one year old; the first shot and the second shot is one to two weeks apart and the third shot is one year after the second shot. After one year implementation, nearly two million kids across the country were immunized two shots of Japanese encephalitis accounting for 91.1% and nearly 1,700,000 kids were vaccinated three shots of Japanese encephalitis in monthly immunization. Many provinces have had high rate of kids injected with the vaccine 95%. 36 over 63 cities and provinces have reported high rate of kids injected with the third shots in the NEIP. The inclusion of the vaccine into NEIP aims to ensure that kids are vaccinated when they are at one. (Giao Thong – Transport May 23 p3)