Illustrative image (Source: VNA)On May 10,25,057 people in 41 cities and provinces have been given the jabs.
The dosesadministered has reached 97 percent of the existing stock of 917,000 dosesof AstraZeneca that Vietnam has received so far as part of the purchase of 30million doses from the company and another 30 million from the global vaccinesharing scheme COVAX Facility that is expected to be delivered in differentbatches within 2021 and early 2022.
The first inline are mostly frontline workers – medical staff directly involved with thetreatment of COVID-19 patient; medical staff performing tasks such ascollecting patient samples, testing and tracing; members of grassrootsanti-COVID-19 groups; members of COVID-19 steering committees at local andcentral levels; and police and military members.
Regarding lastweek's death of a medical worker in Vietnam who developedanaphylactic shock after receiving the COVID-19 shot, health authorities havestressed that the reaction rate is still too small to forego the criticalprotection that the vaccines offer against COVID-19.
Pham Quang Thai,head of the northern region office of the NEPI, said all vaccines, drugs, andeven food – not just COVID-19 vaccines – could lead to adverse reactions, butthe rate is “very low” and if the vaccinated are monitored and reactions arepromptly dealt with then there would be few problems.
“We are painedto hear about the incident. It was very rare, and we won’t pause (thevaccination drive) here but we should learn from the experience here to preventsuch regrettable incidents in the future,” Thai said.
Specifically,there must be increased readiness for the prevention of anaphylaxis at allimmunisation facilities, according to the doctor.
Adrenalinshots must be readily available so that they could be immediately administered,instead of wasting critical time in preparing the shots, he said, adding thattraining and supervision of follow-up post-vaccination monitoring should alsobe strengthened to ensure that medical staff are ready in all situations.
Given thecurrently limited supply to Vietnam, especially as the COVID-19 situation isshowing complicated developments, the health ministry has met with a WorldHealth Organization (WHO) representative to facilitate the negotiations ontransferring of mRNA technology – currently the cutting-edge technology used inhighly effective COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna (whileAstraZeneca used vector-based technology) – so that Vietnam can start producingthe vaccines right within the country.
The healthministry is awaiting the results of the second phase of the human trials ofNanogen, Vietnam’s front runner in the race for a homegrown COVID-19 vaccine,and depending on the safety assessment, could start administering the vaccineto the population as the phase 3 trials commence./.
VNA
