An elderly woman in Hang Bong ward of Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem district receives a vaccine shot in early February 2022. (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – Vietnam on March 13 crossed the mark of 200 million
administered, just over a year since the ‘historic
inoculation campaign’ was launched on March 8 last year.
Of
the 200,179,247 million doses given to date, 183,133,205 were administered to
the adult population (aged 18 and above). They can be broken down further to
70,911,338 first doses, 67,810,841 second doses, 14,459,451 additional doses
and 28,458,438 booster doses.
So
far, 47 of 63 provinces and centrally-run cities have achieved a
rate in this age group of higher than 95 percent. The rate is between 90-95 percent
in the remaining 17 localities, according to the health ministry.
The
number of vaccine doses for children aged between 12 and 17 years of age is
17,046,042, including 8,748,687 first doses and 8,297,355 second doses. About
94 percent of this age group have been fully vaccinated.
Furthermore,
57 out of the 63 provinces and centrally-run cities report that the vaccination
rate in this age group is over 90 percent.
Vietnam,
with a population of nearly 100 million people, reached the 10 million
mark in early August 2021, quite late compared to other countries amid a global
vaccine shortage, but thanks to concentrated efforts to access vaccines from
manufacturers, along with donations during the intense fourth wave of
infections in the south of the country, the vaccination campaign has since
picked-up pace.
The
50 million dose mark was reached just two months later on October 7, and the
milestone of 100 million was achieved over a month later on November 16,
with an average of over a million doses a day administered.
The
rollout hit 150 million another month later at the
end of 2021.
Vietnam
ranks ninth in the world for total administered doses as of March 13. The
United States are in third place with 556 million doses, India is second with
1.8 billion doses, and China is first with 3.17 billion doses.
The
health ministry over the weekend has again called for localities to continue
expanding vaccination efforts, especially with door-to-door mobilisation, so as
not to miss out on any eligible people (currently 12 years old and above) and
to make sure the administration of booster shots is completed within the first
quarter of this year.
Medical
facilities are asked to thoroughly review their list of patients over 50 years
old and people with underlying health issues – who are either under their care
or have been to the facilities for medical examination and treatment – to offer
them vaccinations and boosters, if necessary.
Minister
of Health Nguyen Thanh Long has stressed that vaccines are still
effective in bringing down the risks of disease severity in the infected cases,
hospitalisations and deaths, even with Omicron becoming dominant.
Thanks
to the high vaccination rate in Vietnam, the case fatality rate in the country
has taken a deep dip – down from 0.9 percent on February 1, 2022, to 0.1 percent
on March 3, 2022./.
Source: VietnamPlus
