Health Ministry will do its utmost to ensure safety during COVID-19 vaccinations: Minister

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Health will mobilise all resources to carry out COVID- 一 九 vaccinations to ensure absolute safety for people, Minister Nguyễn Thanh Long has said.

Long chaired a teleconference on Saturday connecting  七00 places across Việt Nam 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 progra妹妹e will start on Monday (March  八), although the first batch of vaccine had arrived in Việt Nam on February  二 四.

“As the vaccine is new, we need to carry out thorough checks,” Long said, adding that Việt Nam 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  六 三 provinces and cities, but for  一 三 pandemic-hit localities, with priority given to northern Hải Dương Province – Việt Nam’s largest outbreak at present, he added.

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

COVAC and AstraZeneca have agreed to provide  三0 million doses each for Việt Nam this year, the minister said, adding the ministry asked the producers to hand over the vaccines to Việt Nam before September and is negotiating with Pfizer to buy an additional  三0 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.

Việt Nam 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 i妹妹igration 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- 一 九 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- 一 九 vaccination priority list.

More than  四 四,000 people will be vaccinated now, including  二, 二 七0 health workers,  三 八 八 contact tracing personnel and  一, 三 六 二 people in COVID- 一 九 surveillance groups.

The rest include  六00 army personnel,  一,0 四 二 police officers,  五 一 三 personnel at government-designated quarantine facilities,  三 八,000 individuals in co妹妹unity groups for COVID- 一 九 monitoring, prevention, and control. — VNS