Gov’t chief urges faster COVID-19 vaccination amidst rising cases

Acting Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan was tasked to drastically direct the healthcare system from the central to the local levels to ensure COVID-19 vaccination progress.

The Ministry of Health was assigned to cooperate with the Ministry of Information and Communications and relevant agencies to enable people to get COVID-19 vaccine jabs on schedule.

Leaders of the People's Committees of cities and provinces were assigned to direct the vaccination and bear the responsibility before the Party, State and the law on the results.

The Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute reported that cases of Omicron's new sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 have increased in the southern localities. 

Meanwhile, sub-variant BA.2.12.1 has also been detected in the localities, where the outbreak of the Delta variant is causing a rise in the case number.

According to the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, 21.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have yet to be administered, mostly Pfizer and Moderna.

Sixteen out of the 63 provinces and cities nationwide have yet to submit their registration of vaccine demand for the last six months of the year as requested by the Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, the progress of the injection of the first and second booster doses as well as the vaccination of children between 5-11 years old have lagged behind scheduled.

Earlier, representatives of the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Viet Nam warned that COVID-19 is still a global public health emergency, stressing that vaccination is still an effective measure against BA.4 and BA.5, along with influenza A and common flu.

As of July 17, over 243.39 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in Viet Nam./.