Doctors screen people at FV Hospital in HCM City before providing COVID-19 vaccines. — VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — HCM City’s Health Department has ordered agencies to reschedule injections for people who were forced to delay their COVID-19 vaccinations.

The move came after many who had to delay vaccinations due to health problems or because they were told to come to hospitals instead of vaccination sites to ensure safety have yet to receive guidance or get rescheduled appointments.

The department asked heads of local hospitals, medical centres and vaccination sites to direct their medical staff to clearly explain the reasons behind delays to COVID-19 jabs.

For people who were forced to delay their COVID-19 vaccinations as they are currently taking medicines or have an acute illness, medical staff are told to inform them of a date they can return for a health assessment. If there is no reason to delay, they should be vaccinated, the department said.

People needing to be carefully supervised during vaccination could receive a jab at both fixed and mobile vaccination sites, the department said.

It was not mandatory to vaccinate them at hospitals, the department said.

Vaccination sites were told to carefully assess the health of those being inoculated and try to provide vaccines on the spot, the department said.

People with abnormal pulse and blood pressure could be inoculated at vaccination sites if doctors are available.

If residents had to visit a hospital for vaccination, the vaccination sites were told to ensure appropriate transfer procedures, the department said.

Medical staff at vaccination sites had to provide a pre-vaccination screening form with the name of the hospital and the reason the person had to go there for their jab.

The department also required all local hospitals to receive people for vaccinations. If the hospitals disagreed with the transfer, they were still required to provide the vaccine. The hospitals could then send feedback on the process.

The city has vaccinated nearly 2.3 million people since July 22.

In a related move, the Ministry of Health sent an additional 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday morning to the city.

Authorities would quickly distribute the vaccines to districts and Thủ Đức City.

The city has also proposed to the Government and the Ministry of Health to provide an additional of 5-5.5 million doses this month. With these additional doses, capacity could be increases to over 350,000 injections each day. — VNS