Deputy Minister of Health Đỗ Xuân Tuyên (centre) gives instructions at the conference. — Photo suckhoedoisong.vn

HÀ NỘI — If provinces and cities implement the coronavirus vaccination slowly and fail to use all of their allocated vaccines by Sunday, the Ministry of Health (MoH) will consider moving the vaccine to other localities, according to Deputy Minister of Health Đỗ Xuân Tuyên.

Tuyên said at an online conference on Monday the MoH had been active in accessing vaccine sources to bring the vaccine to Việt Nam as soon as possible.

The MoH has distributed over 18 million doses to institutes and localities so far. However, reports and assessment of the National Immunisation Steering Committee showed that some localities had conducted the vaccination slowly, such as Đồng Nai, Tây Ninh, Trà Vinh, Bình Dương, Hậu Giang, Bà Rịa Vũng Tàu, Tiền Giang and Thanh Hoá.

He asked localities to speed up the vaccination progress to reach herd immunity.

Localities that have not approved an overall plan for immunisation must complete the plan by Sunday.

Tuyên noted that localities must organise as many vaccination areas as possible, and use all allocated vaccines as quickly as possible to avoid several localities receiving thousands of doses but not completing injections for a full week.

"For example, if a locality receives less than 100,000 doses, the injection must be completed in three days. After three days, the injection is late and the MoH will announce it on mass media,” said Tuyên.

Provincial and municipal people’s committees must assign an official to be in charge of the vaccination, and give punishments for any violations.

The deputy minister also asked localities to report injection rates on the immunisation portal twice a day.

Priority on the number of vaccines will be given to HCM City and southern provinces with a large number of COVID patients. — VNS