Ensuring funding for vaccine procurement for the Expanded Immunization Program

The Government's Resolution clearly states: The 2024 state budget arrangement ensures the implementation of the Expanded Immunization Program, in which the central budget ensures funding for purchasing vaccines for the Expanded Immunization Program.

The Government assigned the Ministry of Health to urgently organize the purchase of vaccines for expanded immunization in accordance with the law; the management and use of vaccines must ensure savings, efficiency, timeliness, and compliance with regulations.

The Minister of Health is responsible to the Prime Minister for ensuring the source of vaccines for children.

The Ministry of Finance shall preside over and coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to submit to competent authorities the budget estimate from the 2024 state budget to the Ministry of Health to purchase vaccines for the Expanded Immunization Program, ensuring compliance with regulations.

Previously, at a press conference providing health information organized by the Ministry of Health on December 15, 2023, Associate Professor, Dr. Duong Thi Hong, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, said that in the period of 2016-2022, the Expanded Immunization Program was allocated funding to purchase vaccines from the Health - Population Target Program. In addition, there is also a source of vaccine purchase supported and aided by GAVI and other foreign organizations. Vaccines in the Expanded Immunization Program are deployed to vaccinate children free of charge.

Recently, resource support from GAVI and international organizations has shifted in the way of support because Vietnam is not on the list of low-income countries, so some types of aid vaccines need to be matched after receiving.

Faced with this reality, the Government issued Resolution No. 98/NQ-CP dated July 10, 2023 and Decision No. 931/QD-TTg dated August 5, 2023, allocating funds for the Ministry of Health to centrally purchase vaccines.

However, according to a representative of the Ministry of Health, due to following legal regulations and purchasing vaccines by ordering (a 9-step process), which takes time, there has been a nationwide shortage of vaccines.

To fundamentally resolve this vaccine shortage, the Ministry of Health said that it is coordinating with relevant ministries and branches to advise on amending Decree No. 104/2016/ND-CP dated July 1, 2016, which allows the allocation of the central budget for the Ministry of Health to ensure funding for purchasing vaccines for the Expanded Immunization Program in the coming period.

According to a representative of the Department of Financial Planning (Ministry of Health), regarding the purchase of vaccines according to orders (imports), with the responsibility of the Ministry of Health, in 2023, this unit is working with the Ministry of Finance to build a vaccine purchase price suitable to the current actual situation, to immediately meet the vaccine demand in 2024.

However, the current vaccine supply time does not meet the bidding document requirements of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology. Therefore, the Ministry of Health has submitted to the Government a Resolution to continue to allow the procurement of this vaccine from the 2023 budget and use the 2024 budget to pay for the purchase of this vaccine in 2023.

During the implementation of vaccine purchase procedures, the Ministry of Health said it will review vaccine sources and actively work with domestic and foreign sponsors to support resources for the Expanded Immunization Program.