One-year COVID-19 vaccination: successful “shield” campaign

After one year implementing the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, Vietnam has administered nearly 198.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine s on people living in the country, becoming one of the six countries with the highest vaccination coverage in the world.

The campaign started on March 8 last with the first shots injected to residents of northern Hai Duong province. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed that the campaign has been a success, resulting in a high vaccination rate. In the Spring campaign alone, 14 million vaccine doses were administered, he noted, adding that Vietnam is considering the fourth shot to residents.

Vaccine – safest shield The outbreak of the COVID-19 has brought about unprecedented challenges to and adverse impacts on the socio-economic life of Vietnam and the whole world.

The Vietnamese Government’s efforts over the past year in speeding up the COVID-19 vaccination have paid off, contributing to enabling the country to safely and flexibly adapt to and effectively control the pandemic.

In only one year, Vietnam received 219 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, of which more than 197 million have been injected with nearly 181 million on adults and over 17 million on children aging from 12-17. So far, the country has basically injected two doses to all people from 12 years old. PM Chinh underlined that the reality shows that vaccine is the best shield against the virus.

Fast vaccination and the ensuring of COVID-19 treatment medicine have helped reduce the critical cases and fatalities. Since the first COVID-19 patient was detected in Vietnam, the country has so far recorded over 4.5 million cases with over 2.5 million recoveries and 40,891 deaths. Although the case number has increased sharply by 197 percent over the previous month, the fatalities have fallen 47 percent and the number of the critical cases dropped 43 percent.

The Ministry of Health affirmed that the pandemic has been under good control across the nation. All localities have switched to safely and flexibly adapt to and effectively control the COVID-19. Rana Flowers, UNICEF Representative in Vietnam, said that together with the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation, the UNICEF recognises that the vaccination in combination with pandemic prevention practices are effective in considerably reducing the critical cases and fatalities.

Still a top priority Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said that the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has generally replaced Delta variant to attack the majority of localities, especially Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

He affirmed that vaccination is still the most effective way to reduce the number of hospitalised patients and deaths, noting that the ratio between deaths and infections was down from 0.9 percent on February 1 to 0.1 percent on March 3. The medical system has stayed firm to take care of the critical cases, he stressed.

COVID-19 vaccination in Ho Chi Minh City. (Photo: VNA)

The ministry is taking steps towards giving treatment to the COVID-19 patients like those suffering other normal diseases, said Long.

The minister underlined that in the time to come, Vietnam will give COVID-19 vaccine shots to children in the age group of 5-11 and is considering the injecting of the fourth doses to residents. Noting that the pandemic may continue to develop complicatedly, the minister called on all people to take part in the vaccination activities and fully implement 5K message.