This is a huge challenge when the whole country enters the stage of safe, flexible adaptation and effective control over the COVID-19 epidemic, requiring relevant ministries, sectors and authorities at all levels to implement the appropriate response measures.
In the prevention and control of epidemics in general and the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, preventive vaccination is an extremely important measure. It helps protect yourself, prevent the possibility of serious illness even if infected with COVID-19; protect those around, especially the elderly and people with chronic diseases. When more and more people are vaccinated, reaching the rate of herd immunity, normal life will soon return.
Like many countries, the Government of Vietnam has implemented a vaccine strategy from the very beginning with the goal of soon achieving the rate of herd immunity on a national scale. In the first half of this year, due to the low supply, the vaccination rate within our country is still low, in recent months, thanks to access throughout many sources, especially promoting vaccine diplomacy, the amount of vaccines imported to Vietnam was very high. The percentage of people being vaccinated has also increased significantly.
To date, the Ministry of Health has allocated nearly 130 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to localities and units. The data published on the afternoon of November 18 showed that the whole country had injected more than 103.6 million doses, of which the first dose was about 66.8 million doses and the second being about 36.8 million doses. The rate of people over 18 years of age who received their first injection was about 88.5%; and the rate of fully vaccinated with two doses was approximately 51%. There are 18 provinces and cities that have achieved coverage of at least one dose of the vaccine for more than 95% of the population aged 18 years and over. In addition, dozens of localities are implementing vaccinations for 12 to 17-year olds.
At the meeting on the afternoon of November 17, the Ministry of Health pointed out a number of inadequacies that localities are facing when deploying COVID-19 vaccines. There are still some localities that are slow to implement vaccinations; Some localities have not fully updated vaccination data, affecting the overall progress of the country. There are localities that have not met all the requirements on vaccination coverage for people over 18 years old but have vaccinated children.
Therefore, localities need to determine that organising vaccines for people is an important and urgent task, focusing on speeding up the progress and increasing the vaccine coverage rate for vaccinated subjects.
According to the Ministry of Health, compared with the number of vaccines distributed and the number of injections, there are still about 15 million doses that have not been used to date. Meanwhile, from now until December 2021, many vaccines will arrive in Vietnam, so the vaccination rate must be accelerated to meet the set schedule and goals.
The Ministry of Health has issued several documents requesting localities to speed up the vaccination schedule in order to quickly achieve coverage of first dose at 100% of people aged 18 years and over and second dose for subjects who have received dose 1 in the required time. On the other hand, it is necessary to proactively review the number of vaccines that have been issued and used in stock; and propose demand from now until the end of the year as well as 2022 for those aged 18 and over and the 12 to 17-year old group, before November 20.
