Vice Chairman directs to speed up vaccination rollout citywide

He made the statement at today’s online meeting with 21 districts and Thu Duc city about the preliminary review after one week of implementation of the vaccination program for children in the city.

Deputy Director of the Department of Health of Ho Chi Minh City Nguyen Huu Hung said that the number of Covid-19 cases in the city in the last weeks of July tended to increase, the Department has advised the municipal People's Committee to choose August as the peak month for vaccination against Covid-19 for children.

After one week of implementation, the city has organized 188 injection points at schools and administered approximately 82,042 shots of vaccines, 1.45 times higher than the previous week with 56,538 shots.

However, according to the Deputy Director of the Department of Health, the city's vaccination coverage rate is lower than the national average.

Specifically, the proportion of children from 5 to under 12 years old who received the first dose was 51.2 percent while the country’s vaccination coverage rate was 71 percent. Similarly, the city’s rate for the second dose and the third dose was 26.9 percent and 25.5 percent respectively while the country’s average rate was 39.9 percent and 38.1 percent respectively. Districts 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, Binh Thanh, Tan Phu, Phu Nhuan, Tan Binh, Go Vap, and outlying districts Binh Chanh, Cu Chi, Hoc Mon, Can Gio, and Thu Duc City have relatively low vaccination coverage rates ranging from 50-80 percent.

Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training Nguyen Van Hieu said that schools in the city have sent notices to parents for vaccination registration. He explained that because students have not yet returned to schools for the low rate of students getting injections; hence, teaching staff faced difficulties in encouraging parents to take their children to medical facilities for immunization.

From the situation, Mr. Nguyen Van Hieu proposed the city give the education sector more time, until August 22, when students return to school, the education sector will organize injections in schools.

At the meeting, Vice Chairman Duc requested not to relax vigilance to prevent a resurgence of Covid-19 infection in the next stage to facilitate the city's socio-economic recovery and development. He emphasized that the development of the coronavirus epidemic is unpredictably complicated while herd immunity declines over time; worse, he warned of the prevalence of neglectful behavior toward the Covid pandemic.

Therefore, he urged to drastically speed up the vaccination of children against Covid-19 and the vaccination rate for children in the city must reach above the national average proportion by August 31.

To do this, the Vice Chairman of the City People's Committee directed the health sector to continue closely monitoring the epidemic situation, especially the occurrence of new variants of Covid-19 as well as regularly assessing and analyzing the situation and risk factors. Furthermore, the sector ought to develop scenarios and response plans for all possible situations of the epidemic.

He also reminded the city's education sector to take advantage of information technology to text and share information about the vaccination rollout so that all parents will take their children to infirmaries to get vaccinated.