Hanoi has enough vaccine to inject third shots for residents

Hanoi has secured enough COVID-19 vaccines to inject third shots for local residents, according to Tran Thi Nhi Ha, Director of the municipal Department of Health (DoH).

Illustrative image.
Illustrative image.

The DoH has asked relevant agencies to speed up the vaccination of the booster jabs for the elderly, people with underlying diseases and high-risk groups by administering vaccine shots for them at home.

Ha suggested people actively coordinate with local authorities and health centres for the full injection of booster shots to ensure the health of themselves and their families, adding that it will be effective against severe illness, especially with new variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Hanoi now ranks 2nd after Ho Chi Minh City in terms of third doses given, which has so far administered 1.1 million additional doses and 320,000 booster doses.

The city recorded 2,505 cases of COVID-19, including 594 community infections from 6pm on January 4 to 6pm on January 5, the DoH reported.

Districts that reported the highest number of infections are Dong Anh with 131 cases, followed by Thanh Tri, Thanh Xuan and Tu Liem with 127, 123 and 115, respectively.

Hanoi has logged 59,915 cases since the fourth wave of COVID-19 infections broke out on April 29, 2021. Of which, 19,261 are community cases.

By January 4, Vietnam had injected over 155.19 million doses of vaccines, with more than 69,80 million people now fully inoculated, while over 7,40 million third shots, either booster shots or the third shot of Abdala vaccine have been administered.