Nearly 12 million children 5-11 years old get COVID-19 vaccine from April

At the Vaccination Training Workshop COVID-19 vaccine Children from 5 to under 12 years old organized by the Ministry of Health on the afternoon of March 31, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Duong Thi Hong, Deputy Director of the Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, said that according to the plan, from April 2022, 63 Provinces and cities across the country will start vaccinating children 5-11 years old.

Children from 11 years old (grade 6) will be vaccinated first, then gradually lower the age. Children will be vaccinated at schools, fixed vaccination facilities and mobile vaccinations.

Two vaccines selected by the Ministry of Health for this age group are Pfizer and Moderna.

Speaking at the conference, Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Truong Son said that recently, when students returned to school, the rate of COVID-19 infection among children aged 5-11 increased. Through international and domestic research, complications from COVID-19 infection in this age group will affect health of children such as myocarditis, multi-organ inflammation, MIS-C.

From the above fact, the Ministry of Health held an advisory council to consult the world on vaccination for children 5-11 years old. The ministry also coordinated with relevant units to survey the level of parental consent on the vaccination against COVID-19 for this age group. The survey showed that the majority of parents agreed to give their children the COVID-19 vaccine.

In order to be ready to deploy the COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5-11 years old in early April 2022, the Ministry of Health previously requested the Health Departments of provinces and cities to coordinate with the Department of Education and Training to review and make a list of COVID-19 vaccines. vaccination for children going to school from grade 1 to grade 6, aged 5-11 years old.

For children of this age who do not go to school, the Department of Health coordinates with local authorities to make a list, develop a plan, prepare to be eligible for vaccination so that it can be deployed as soon as the vaccine is allocated. The unit cooperates with the Department of Education and Training to organize vaccination in the form of a campaign, free of charge at fixed vaccination facilities, at mobile vaccination sites and schools (for places where concentrated learning is held at schools).

The Ministry of Health also requests parents and guardians to sign the vaccination consent form according to the issued form; Vaccination points perform pre-injection screening according to instructions and follow-up and post-injection care as prescribed.

According to statistics on the COVID-19 vaccination portal, by 2:30 p.m. on March 31, the whole country had injected 206,106,897 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. As of March 30, the number of COVID-19 vaccines administered to people aged 18 and over was 188.703,155 doses, of which the first dose was 71,233,025 doses; Nose 2: 69.529,651 doses; Additional dose: 14,902,166 doses and 3 doses: 33,038,313 doses;

Number of doses of COVID-19 vaccine given to children aged 12-17 years old is 17,178,894, of which dose 1: 8,801,016 doses; Nose 2: 8,377,878 doses.