Ho Chi Minh City on December 10 started providing additional booster shots of Covid-19 vaccine to local people.
Ho Chi Minh City started providing additional booster shots of Covid-19 vaccine to local people on December 10.
According to a plan issued on December 7 by the vice-chairman of the municipal people's committee, Duong Anh Duc, the third Covid-19 vaccine shots will be given to 6.3 million people from December 10 in an effort to boost their immunity against the virus.
The city will administer the booster shots to people aged above 18 who are fully vaccinated or who have received the additional shot at least six months previously. The priority will be given to people aged over 50, those suffering from underlying health issues, people who require long-term care at health facilities, and medical workers, especially those directly involved in collecting samples for Covid-19 testing and treating Covid-19 patients.
Meanwhile, additional Covid-19 shots will first go to the adults (from 18 years old) who have been fully inoculated with the last shot of the normal course at least 28 days before and are immunocompromised. Priority will be given to those aged over 60.
On December 10, people doing Covid-19 prevention and control work, the military forces, the police, and patients suffering immunocompromised diseases were given priority to receive their third vaccine shots.
Doctor Thach Thi Ca from Go Vap District Healthcare Centre said that a total of 250 HIV patients were given their third doses at the centre on Friday morning.
"We are using Pfizer and AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines for those third shots," she said.
More than 1,000 people who are joining in the Covid-19 prevention work were also given their third vaccine shots on Friday morning.
As of December 5, over 7.92 million people in Ho Chi Minh City had been vaccinated, with nearly 6.82 million of them receiving the full two jabs.
Ho Chi Minh City is still the biggest Covid-19 epicentre in Vietnam, which is reporting a resurgence in the number of infections after a short time easing social distancing measures. On Thursday the city recorded 1,453 new cases, raising the total number of infections in the city to 483,376.