A woman in HCM City completes her health screening before getting the COVID-19 vaccine. VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Vũ

HCM CITY - Minister of Health Nguyễn Thanh Long is allowing HCM City to pilot shortening the COVID-19 vaccination procedure as a way to save time and speed up the vaccination rollout in the city.

HCM City’s Health Department on Thursday morning proposed that people aged under 65 years old and having no underlying medical conditions should not have to undergo health screening before getting a COVID-19 vaccine shot.

People in good health without any illness or diseases will also be allowed to leave the vaccination site earlier instead of waiting for at least 30 minutes.

According to HCM City’s Health Department, the shortened vaccination procedure could help save time, meaning that more people could receive vaccines at the same site and vaccination workers could finish work at one site and shift to another.

In an urgent message sent to HCM City People’s Committee on Thursday afternoon, Health Minister Long said the city could decide on suitable post-vaccination health monitoring.

Long also emphasized that the city had to speed up the vaccination rollout.

If the city faced a shortage of vaccination personnel, the Health Ministry would arrange more medical workers to help, he said.

All people aged over 18 in the city must be vaccinated, especially elderly people, those who work on the front line of COVID-19 prevention and control, and those suffering from other diseases. 

The city’s health authority was also asked to pay attention to people who now have to delay vaccination for health problems.

As soon as they are eligible for vaccination, they should be arranged to get the vaccine.

Local authorities have instructed people to register for vaccination and answer health screening questions. They are then informed of the exact time and location of their vaccination.

Vaccination stations will be set up in locked-down areas so that people don’t have to travel to other areas to get vaccinated.

People are called on to install the e-health record app so that authorities can easily handle the city’s vaccination programme, including the number of vaccinated people and the number of people registering for vaccination.

Currently, HCM City has 650 vaccination groups delivering about 70,000-80,000 shots daily.

The city plans to have about 70 per cent of the population over the age of 18 to have received one dose of the vaccine by the end of next month.

HCM City now has a population of nearly 9 million people. Of that, almost seven million people are over 18 years old. Until now, almost 980,000 people in the city received one shot while more than 62,200 people have received two shots. VNS