Center of disease control and prevention

The Hanoitimes – The MoH is working with the COVAX to arrange for another shipment of 1.3 million doses to arrive at Vietnam in March.

The Ministry of Health (MoH) would mobilize all resources to carry out Vietnam’s largest vaccination program yet with an estimated of 100 million doses.

Local volunteer vaccinated with domestic Covid-19 vaccine named Nanocovax in Hanoi. Photo: Ngoc Tu

Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long made the statement at an online conference discussing plan for the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination program held today [March 6].

“With the country’s first Covid-19 vaccine doses set to be administered on March 8 in the northern province of Hai Duong, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, there would no doubt be side effects, but this is not the reason for Vietnam to stop the vaccination program,” stated Long.

According to Long, Covid-19 vaccines are developed and manufactured in the shortest time in the history of vaccine development, so the effective period of vaccines varies from six months to two years.

“In addition to importing vaccines, Vietnam would accelerate the R&D processes for domestic Covid-19 vaccines to ensure long-term public health security,” Long added.

The minister suggested any post-vaccination side effects is possible, as not any vaccine can be 100% safe.

“As the vaccine is new, so the vaccination program will be carried out in a cautious manner,” added Long, saying local health authorities have evaluated the safety of vaccines in Vietnam.

With the limited amount of vaccine doses, Long said the MoH would prioritize vaccination for 13 cities and provinces of high risk.

“The MoH is working with the COVAX to arrange for another shipment of 1.3 million doses to arrive at Vietnam in March,” he informed.

Vaccine passport

Under the government resolution NO.21 on the 11 priority groups, Long said the first doses of Covid-19 vaccines would be allocated for health workers at 21 health facilities with the highest level of risks, followed by front-line workers of the Covid-19 fight in Hai Duong, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

One of a key point in Vietnam’s vaccination program is that health officials would carry out health check-up for locals before vaccination to ensure safety.

Every people getting vaccinated will be added into a database for supervision.

“Vietnam’s vaccination system would later be integrated with other countries, which would serve as a basis for vaccine passport, and is managed via QR code,” Long noted.

Last month, Vietnam received more than 204,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca as part the WHO-led COVAX Facility vaccine-sharing scheme.

Vietnam has been negotiating with AstraZeneca to import 30 million doses for 2021 and another 33 million doses from COVAX.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are possible side effects after getting a Covid-19 vaccine including: pain, redness, swelling, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, fever and nausea.

The Hanoitimes – The Hanoi Center for Disease Prevention and Control will set up quick Covid-19 testing booths in all 30 districts in the city.

The Hanoi city government has decided to set up five more rapid Covid-19 testing booths for mass testing in urban districts, VnExpress quoted Deputy Director of the Hanoi Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) Khong Minh Tuan as saying.

Tuan said that the total nine booths are located in eight urban districts of Hoan Kiem, Long Bien, Cau Giay, Hoang Mai, Ha Dong, Dong Da, Hai Ba Trung, Ba Dinh and suburban Thanh Oai.

Citizens are sampled at a quick Covid-19 testing station in Hanoi’s Dong Da district. Photo: Giang Huy

The Hanoi CDC will set up rapid Covid-19 testing booths in all 30 districts in the city. However, the process depends on the number of test kits to be delivered.

Besides, in face of the shortage of health workers with expertise in sampling and testing, the Hanoi CDC is organizing training courses for 800 employees.

People who will be sampled for quick testing are Covid-19 patients, caregivers, interns and those who visited Bach Mai Hospital’s canteen between March 10 and 28. About 16,000 people are subject to this category, according to statistics of the Hanoi Department of Health.

Hanoi began rapid Covid-19 testing on March 31. Quick test kits made in South Korea will be used at the booths and they will show results after 10 minutes analyzing blood samples. As of April 2 night, 1,782 people have used this testing service, six of them were positive for coronavirus but the tests came out negative when diagnosed again by Realtime RT-PCR in labs.

At the time of writing, Vietnam has recorded 233 Covid-19 patients, of them 85 have been cured and discharged from hospital. Hanoi reported 105 active coronavirus-infected cases, the largest number in the country.

The Hanoitimes – Pharmacies are requested to ask clients buying medicines for cold and common cold symptoms such as cough and fever to make health declaration.

The Hanoi city government has asked 7,000 pharmacies citywide to report people buying medicines for cold, cough and fever in recent days as the municipal government has been making efforts to curb Covid-19 spread, local media quoted mayor Nguyen Duc Chung as saying at a meeting on April 13.

Accordingly, pharmacies are requested to ask clients buying medicines for cold and common cold symptoms such as cough and fever to make health declaration.

A drug store on Vu Trong Phung street in Thanh Xuan district, Hanoi. Photo: Thanh Hue

“If any of these pharmacies fails to report, they will be dealt with in accordance with the law, even see their licenses revoked. This is their duty to prevent and control the pandemic,” Chung said.

Besides, the Hanoi’s leader requested all private clinics and medical centers to take samples for Covid-19 testing from any visitor seeking treatment for ailments like fever, cough and shortness of breath.

He added that small pandemic outbreaks in Hanoi have basically been put under control. The lockdown on Bach Mai Hospital, Vietnam’s largest Covid-19 outbreak, was lifted on April 12.

However, there are complications at Ha Loi village in Me Linh district, which has emerged as Hanoi’s second largest outbreak with at least 12 infections linked to it so far.

“The city must focus on putting down the Ha Loi outbreak and identifying all those who come into contact with the Covid-19 patient No.243, the first infection detected there,” Chung said.

The Health Ministry has announced a list of places that the 243th patient had visited between March 8 and April 4, and called for everyone who had been to those places to report in person for health monitoring as soon as possible.

Health workers have been asked to immediately impose a 14-day home quarantine on anyone related to Ha Loi village and Bach Mai hospital.

According to Vice President of the Vietnam Association of Infectious Diseases Nguyen Hong Ha, in addition to controlling the two above-mentioned outbreaks, the local authorities need to keep supervising other cases. The reason is that some people with coronavirus infection can travel around and infect others, Ha said.

Nguyen Quoc Thai, a doctor in the Center for Tropical Diseases under Bach Mai Hospital, said that people buying drug for self-medication if infected with coronavirus would transmit to people around them.

Dr. Pham Duc Hung from Children’s Hospital of Cincinnati, Ohio, the US stressed that medical declaration for any manifestation of cough and fever before purchasing at pharmacy is necessary. People infected with Covid-19 buying at drug store could make it a transmission center of the epidemic.