Ministry of Health: Recalculate the amount of Covid-19 vaccine to buy for children 5-11 years old

Vietnam is currently in the top 10 in the world and sixth in Asia in terms of vaccine coverage rate for Covid-19. Up to now, Vietnam has completed injections 1, 2; The third dose reached 45% in people 18 years of age and older, and also preparing to vaccinate children 5-11 years old.

Deputy Minister of Health Do Xuan Tuyen said that from the beginning of December last year, the ministry had developed a plan and submitted to the Government for promulgation a resolution to buy vaccines for children aged 5-11. At that time, according to the statistics of the provinces, the number of children aged 5-11 years old in our country was about 11.8 million, equivalent to about 21.9 million doses of vaccine (calculated according to the normal vaccination rate of 95%, vaccination). 2 noses). At the time, we were in the process of negotiating and the Pfizer vaccine was not yet licensed.

Up to now, the vaccine has been licensed, but the epidemic situation is different, specifically the number of children infected Covid-19 increase. In addition, there are a number of organizations that want to support vaccines for Vietnam, but have not confirmed the quantity and time. Most recently, on March 18, Australia also wanted to support more than 9 million doses of vaccines for children, mainly Moderna.

“Vaccine for children is different from all vaccines given to people aged 12 and over, that is, it can only be given to children 5-11 years old, not for other people. This is a difficult point, if not calculated carefully, There may be an excess or a shortage of vaccines. The Prime Minister has assigned the Ministry of Health not to have excess, not to lack, this is difficult, “Deputy Minister Tuyen said.

According to the Deputy Minister, for the same reason, there has been a delay in buying vaccines for children 5-11 years old. The Ministry of Health has also been criticized for being slow. The ministry is asking relevant parties to review to see what the cause of the delay is, objectively or subjectively, to report to the Prime Minister.

“If we are sponsored by organizations, we don’t have to buy a lot, we will save many millions of dollars. While we have paid a deposit to buy, we cannot transfer, donate or sell. That is the difficult point. will work with recalculation units to report on the issue of vaccines for children aged 5-11, and will try to submit them to the Prime Minister by the end of this month,” said Deputy Minister Tuyen.

The deputy minister also emphasized that people should not be subjective, not because of high vaccine coverage and not take other measures to prevent epidemics. With the appearance of the Omicron variant, it is possible that a new strain may appear, so it requires us to continue to make greater efforts in epidemic prevention.