(Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan has said that Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh would chair a meeting of the National Steering
Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control this weekend to deliberate the
downgrading of COVID-19 from its current placement in Class A infectious
diseases down to Class B.
Lan told the National Assembly that on May 29 that the World
Health Organisation (WHO) announced that COVID-19 no longer constituted a
Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the designation that was
attached to the viral disease more than three years ago, but the pandemic is
not over yet.
In accordance with the guidance of the Government leader, the
Ministry of Health was also coordinating with other ministries and agencies to
review the legal regulations, consult the experience of other countries, and
review practical measures for the prevention and control of COVID-19 in Vietnam,
Lan noted.
The Ministry of Health had taken the lead in working with other
ministries and agencies to build a dossier to reclassify infectious diseases
from Class A to Class B, she said.
Vietnam classifies infections into three classes A, B, and C,
mostly according to the severity.
Group A includes highly dangerous infectious diseases that can
spread rapidly, widely, and have a high death rate or the cause of the disease
is not yet known.
Examples are Polio, Avian influenza A-H5N1, Plague, Hemorrhagic
fever caused by Ebola, Lassa or Marburg viruses, West Nile fever, Yellow fever,
Cholera, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, and new dangerous infectious
diseases that have newly emerged with unknown/unclear pathogens.
Class B includes dangerous infectious diseases that can be rapidly
transmittable and fatal, which include Adenovirus disease, Human
immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS),
Influenza, Rabies, Whooping cough (pertussis), Tuberculosis, Shigellosis,
Mumps, Dengue fever, Malaria, Measles, Hand-foot-mouth disease, Anthrax,
Smallpox, Typhoid fever, Rubella, Viral hepatitis, Viral encephalitis, and
Zika, etc.
And Class C embraces less dangerous and not rapidly transmittable
infectious diseases, which include chlamydia.
The Minister of Health has the competence to revise the list of
in each class.
Tran Dac Phu, former Director of the Preventive Medicine
Department and Senior Advisor to the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre
(under the Ministry of Health), has told local media that the COVID-19
situation in Vietnam is still under control, with the majority of new cases
having mild or no symptoms, and the healthcare system is not being overloaded.
The most severe and fatal cases are still concentrated among those
with underlying health problems, the elderly, the unvaccinated, and those with
compromised immune systems.
These individuals are also at risk of developing more severe
illness and death from other infectious diseases, such as influenza, not just
COVID-19, according to Phu.
When these individuals contract diseases that weaken their immune
systems, they become vulnerable to other diseases, leading to more severe
illness and death.
Vietnam has already moved on to flexible, safe and effective
adaptation and control of COVID-19 strategy since late 2021, thanks to the high
vaccination rate.
Although we have not yet reclassified COVID-19 from Group A to
Group B, Phu observed, many activities have returned to normal, such as
reopening borders, lifting travel restrictions, organising meetings and events
without mandatory testing, and loosening quarantine measures to ensure economic
activities and social welfare.
However, Phu stressed that COVID-19 still has its unique
characteristics as the WHO has not declared the end of this pandemic and the
body still advises countries to be cautious and shift from emergency response
to sustainable and long-term disease control strategies.
Therefore, in terms of policy and planning for COVID-19 prevention
and control, Phu underlined the need to closely monitor the epidemiological
situation to have appropriate responses, without being taken by surprise, to
control the disease in all situations while minimising costs, protecting the
health and rights of the people.
“It is especially important to note that disease surveillance
efforts, personal prevention measures, vaccination, communication, and
protecting vulnerable groups should be prioritised,” the health expert
said.
According to the Ministry of Health’s statistics, Vietnam
has so far recorded over 11.6 million infections, with total recoveries
logged at 10.63 million.
Over 43,200 deaths have been attributed to COVID-19, about 0.4% of
the total caseload.
More than 266.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been
administered across the country./.
Source: VietnamPlus
