COVID-19 vaccination set to begin in Vietnam on March 8

At present, all of the conditions to move forward with injections have been met in the nation. In line with the plan, the Ministry of Health is set to hold a conference on March 6 to implement the COVID-19 vaccination plan, provide training for the vaccine rollout, whilst handling all complications which may occur after inoculation, Minister Long said.

Initially, the vaccines were delivered to 18 COVID-19 treatment facilities and those directly involved in treating patients in 13 pandemic-hit provinces, with the highest priority being given to Hai Duong due to the locality being the nation’s most severely hit COVID-19 hotspot.

Moving forward, all vaccinated people will be managed and monitored with electronic health records, as well as being online certified to confirm that they have been vaccinated.

Approximately 1.3 million doses of the vaccine from the Covax facility will be delivered in April. However, it must be confirmed that the vaccination does do not guarantee 100% protection, Minister Long stressed.

According to information released by the manufacturer, the Pfizer vaccine has an efficiency rate of over 90%, whilst the AstraZeneca vaccine is 76% after the first shot, rising to 81% after the second dose. Minister Long stated that the vaccine will not solve all the problems relating to the pandemic, therefore urging every citizen to strictly comply with COVID-19 prevention measures.

Ensuring a sufficient supply of COVID-19 vaccines will prove to be very difficult as these are newly developed vaccines that have not had a long period of research to confirm their quality and effectiveness, the Minister added.

According to the Ministry of Health, along with purchasing vaccines from abroad, it is necessary to focus on vaccine research and production, and stay active in ensuring domestically-produced vaccine sources, he added.