Dinh Tien Dung, Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee, affirmed that in order to open schools and reduce the number of severe cases, children under 12 years old need to be vaccinated.
During a meeting on Covid-19 prevention and control in Hanoi on March 28, Mr. Dung asked the health sector and localities to review the preparations, get ready for the plan, and organize vaccination drills for children. For children under 12 years old, ensure that there is a regimen that is to deploy injections as quickly and effectively as the injection for children 12-17 years old.
“Must be vaccinated to safely send children to school, if there is a Covid-19 infection, it will be mild and reduce the risk,” Dung said.
High school students in Hanoi are vaccinated against Covid-19 in early November 2021. Photo: Giang Huy
Up to now, Vietnam has basically covered two vaccines for people from 12 years old, but has not yet implemented vaccination for this group of children under this age. The policy of vaccination for children 5-11 years old was mentioned by the Prime Minister from the end of December 2021. By the end of January, the Ministry of Health said it had proposed to the Government and approved the policy buy 21.9 million doses Pfizer vaccine. In early March, the Ministry of Health said it was preparing to sign a contract with Pfizer, but so far it has not been done.
On March 27, the Ministry of Health said that the Australian government committed to aid about 13.7 million doses Covid-19 vaccine for children 5-11 years old, will be divided into two shipments to Vietnam. The first phase has 0.7 million doses of Pfizer vaccine and 9 million doses of Moderna vaccine, the second phase has 4 million doses of Pfizer vaccine. These vaccines will be given at the beginning of April.
In Hanoi, by the end of March, more than 99% of the 660,000 children aged 12-17 (grades 7-12) had received two doses of the vaccine. Children in the group will be able to return to school directly from February 8.
Meanwhile, about 950,000 students in grades 1-6 and 600,000 preschool children (who have not been vaccinated) continue to study online or stay at home. In the first three weeks of February, elementary and sixth grade students in the suburbs of Hanoi were allowed to return to school, but then had to stop because the number of infections increased rapidly. This group of students living in the inner city with preschool children have been at home since the end of April 2021.
Hanoi is the place for students to stay at home with the largest scale and longest time in the country.
Thanh Hang
at Blogtuan.info – Source: vnexpress.net – Read the original article here
