Several medical centers didn’t have enough paid vaccine against diphtheria but the free vaccine in the National Expanded immunization Program for children only. Adults must wait till next week because medical centers are short of the vaccine.
Coming the medical center in District 12, Nguyen Tat Dat said he took his wife to the center for vaccination for fear of transmission but the center had no vaccine left; so he had to go to other medical centers.
At Pasteur Institute, patient overload was seen. At 8 AM, the automatic sign displayed the number 1,280. Most of patients were adults in the institute.
40 year-old man Nguyen Cao Cuong hailing from Go Vap District said he asked for one-day leave from work to take his wife and his younger brother to the institute for vaccination against diphtheria as the disease is fatal with high mortality rate.
Meanwhile in Vietnam vaccine centers in HCMC, the southern provinces of Dong Nai, Binh Duong and the Central City of Da Nang, the number of people to the centers sharply rose by 200 percent – 300 percent. Three-in-one vaccine BOOSTRIX priced VND735,000 per dose, six-in-one vaccine INFARIX HEXA priced VND1,015,000 per dose and four-in-one TETRAXIM costing VND458,000 a dose are available at centers of Vietnam Vaccine Joint Stock Company (VNVC).
Director of the VNVC system Dr. Bach Thi Chinh said that from 1990, Vietnam has produced vaccines against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus which were included in the National Expanded Immunization Program for children aged from 2 to 4 month old.
The vaccine against diphtheria- tetanus in the National Expanded Immunization Program is merely used for mass vaccination campaign when the disease breaks out countrywide.
