Vietnam will start giving Covid-19 vaccines to children aged 5-11 from April 14 according to the Ministry of Health.
Vietnam will start giving Covid-19 vaccines to children aged 5-11 from April 14
Children in the northern province of Quang Ninh will be the first to receive the vaccine before the campaign is expanded to the whole country.
Duong Thi Hong, deputy head of the National Institute Of Hygiene and Epidemiology told Dantri/Dtinews on Wednesday morning that they had received the first batches of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine from the Australian government for children aged 5-11. They have sent the vaccine to Quang Ninh Province while other localities will receive the vaccine next week.
"The vaccine will first be given to 11-year-old children," Hong said. "The Ministry of Health has issued instructions on the inoculation for each age group."
Phan Trong Lan, director of the Ministry of Health's Department of Preventive Medicine, said that there are over 11.8 million children aged between 5-11 in Vietnam and some 8.2 million of them hadn't been affected by Covid-19 as of April.
"We’re planning to give two doses of Covid-19 vaccine to all these children by the end of the second quarter," he said. "Children who have been infected with the virus should wait three months. Surveys showed that some 30 percent of parents were still reluctant to give the vaccine to their children."
Deputy Minister of Health Do Xuan Tuyen said the ministry had initially proposed to buy 21.9 million doses of vaccine. However, during the negotiations to sign the contract with Pfizer, several international organisations and countries, including the embassies of Australia and the Netherlands in Vietnam, announced they would donate vaccines to the country to immunise children.
As a result, the ministry is adjusting the quantity of Pfizer vaccines purchased.
