Latest guidance on Covid-19 vaccination in Vietnam

The Ministry of Health said that currently, the Covid-19 pandemic in the world is evolving unpredictably, with new sub-variants continuing to be recorded. In November 2023, the World Health Organization in Vietnam issued updated recommendations on priority groups for COVID-19 vaccination in the coming time.

On October 19, 2023, the Ministry of Health issued Decision No. 3896/QD-BYT adjusting the classification of Covid-19 from group A infectious diseases to group B infectious diseases. Currently, Covid-19 is being controlled and managed sustainably according to Decision No. 3984/QD-BYT dated October 29, 2023 of the Ministry of Health, in which vaccination is a task and solution in the period of 2023-2025.

To enhance immunity against Covid-19, especially in high-risk groups, based on the recommendations of the World Health Organization's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization and the Ministry of Health's Vaccine Advisory Council, the Ministry of Health has sent a document to the Department of Health of provinces and centrally run cities; the Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, and the Pasteur Institute on guidelines for Covid-19 vaccination.

Accordingly, the subjects of Covid-19 vaccination include: Medical staff; people over 50 years old, people with underlying medical conditions; people over 18 years old who have not received any vaccinations; pregnant women.

Regarding Covid-19 vaccine doses: If you have not received any doses, get one dose immediately. If you have received one dose, get one more dose at least 6 months after the previous dose with a vaccine licensed for use by the Ministry of Health.

For pregnant women, inject 1 dose during each pregnancy and inject at any stage of pregnancy, preferably in the middle stage of pregnancy.

The Ministry of Health requests that units review the vaccination rate in the area and the subjects that need to be vaccinated according to the above instructions to study and propose the need for COVID-19 vaccines in the coming time and send them to the Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology for timely supply and organize vaccination according to the local plan.

To date, our country has administered more than 266.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine. Vietnam is one of the countries with the highest Covid-19 vaccination coverage rate in the world, with the rate of basic vaccination for people aged 12 and over reaching nearly 100%, and the rate of 4th vaccination for people aged 18 and over at high risk reaching 89.6%.

Previously, at the Conference on implementing the work of preventing and controlling infectious diseases in 2024 organized by the Ministry of Health in late January 2024, the Ministry of Health said that the Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology is preserving more than 432,000 doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine with an expiry date until the end of September 2024.

To be prepared and proactively respond in case Covid-19 returns, the Ministry of Health has issued a Plan for sustainable control and management of the Covid-19 epidemic for the 2023-2025 period, including a plan to ensure medical work in the event of a new, more dangerous strain of Covid-19 spreading widely, exceeding the capacity of the system.

Regarding Covid-19, scientists have recently warned that a new sub-variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19, called KP.2, is more contagious and more resistant to vaccines than previous variants, including the XBB variant that accounts for the majority of new infections.

According to the study, KP.2 has a significantly higher true reproduction number than the JN.1 variant, indicating that it is more transmissible. This has been observed in the US, UK and Canada, where KP.2 is spreading rapidly.

KP.2 also shows high neutralization resistance, meaning it can evade the immune response generated by vaccines or by infection with earlier variants. This higher resistance to vaccines may partly explain the increase in Covid-19 cases caused by KP.2...