Vietnam gears up preparations for COVID-19 vaccination for children

October 31, 2021 | 10:03

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The Ministry of Health (MoH) on October 29 held an online training programme for 63 cities and provinces about COVID-19 vaccination for children aged 12-17 to ensure safety, expecting to start in early November.

Vietnam gears up preparations for COVID-19 vaccination for children

The vaccination of children against COVID-19 has already started in Ho Chi Minh City

The MoH said that the COVID-19 vaccination is important to protect children’s health amid the pandemic and to increase community vaccination coverage.

In the roadmap, children aged 16-17 will receive the first shots, followed by younger children. The country will use the Comirnaty vaccine of Pfizer for the vaccination.

Do Xuan Tuyen, Deputy Minister of Health, told VIR, “We negotiated and signed a contract with Pfizer about the supply of the vaccine for children. Pfizer pledged to supply about 30 million doses, about 10 million of which have already arrived in Vietnam.”

The MoH aims that children aged 12-17 will receive their first shot within the fourth quarter of 2021.

According to the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE), as many as 36 countries worldwide vaccinated children with Pfizer vaccines, including 19 nations in the EU. Many countries in Asia also did the same.

Vietnam has so far vaccinated 52.6 million adults with at least one shot and 21.5 million people have been fully vaccinated.

As of October 29, nearly 80 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered to people aged 18 and above in Vietnam, 23 million of whom have received both shots.