Vietnam’s Ministry Prepares for Largest-ever COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign

The Vietnamese Ministry of Health has prepared for the largest-ever vaccination campaign, with 100 million doses of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long has said. Minister Long revealed the information at a meeting between the health ministry and representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) about COVID-19 vaccination. The health ministry plans to allocate all resources from the health and non-health sectors to join the vaccination campaign, in a bid to speed up the vaccination progress, aiming to eliminate the impacts of the pandemic and soon give locals’ lives back to normal. Under the campaign, all public health facilities will join the vaccination and medical students will support mobile stations in injecting locals. At the meeting, participants stated that no vaccines, especially COVID-19 vaccines developed in a short period of time, can ensure 100% safety, highlighting the importance of post-injection observation and evaluation. They also agreed that some locals will be prioritized for COVID-19 vaccination in line with the government’s resolution based on equality. They highlighted the necessity of crowdfunding resources in ensuring storage conditions for some COVID-19 vaccines like the U.S.’s Pfizer. Vietnam is expected to receive 150 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines this year, Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said, adding that locals will be injected in seven phases, with the first one being 117,00 doses from the U.K.’s AstraZeneca PLC. The next phases will be sourced mainly from AstraZeneca and COVAX program. In the seventh phase, 90.5 million doses will be taken from some foreign partners and domestic producers from the fourth quarter of this year to the second quarter of next year. (Bo Y Te, ncov.moh.gov.vn, vietnamnet.vn, vnexpress.net)