At the handover ceremony (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – The United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), in partnership with UNICEF, has delivered
590 vaccine refrigerators to the Vietnamese Ministry of Health as part of
support to further improve for routine immunisation and
COVID-19 vaccination campaigns.
“ and the US Government are proud to continue our
strong collaboration with the Government and people of Vietnam in jointly
addressing the national and global challenge of infectious diseases,” Myat Htoo Razak, USAID’s Senior Global Health Security Advisor, said at the handover event.
Government of Vietnam, particularly the Ministry of Health, National Expanded
Immunisation Programme,” he said.
The vaccine refrigerators – HBC-80 model – will be
delivered to 590 hard-to-reach communes in 12 provinces in northern and central
regions of Vietnam.
The model can maintain cold conditions for vaccines
that must be stored at a temperature range of 2 degrees Celsius to 8 degrees
Celsius, which is required for the majority of vaccines managed under the
Expanded Immunisation Programme.
With a storage capacity of 61L, each refrigerator will
be able to store enough vaccine doses for routine immunisation and targeted
in the communes.
The support is crucial to ensure that vaccines are
safely stored and delivered at commune level, enabling children to be
vaccinated as soon as they are due – rather than waiting to collect vaccines
from a higher-level storage facility that is far away, Maharajan Muthu, Chief of Child Survival and Development at Vietnam, said, affirming that UNICEF is committed to continue supporting the strengthening of the
health system not only at the national level but also to ensure strong capacity
at the community level.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, USAID and UNICEF worked
with the Ministry of Health to bolster communication campaigns providing useful
information to the public, as well as to support with the infection prevention,
control and response efforts.
USAID, in partnership with UNICEF, said it will
continue to support Vietnam in improving the capacity of immunisation systems./.
Source: VietnamPlus
