HCMC – The government of the northern coastal city of Haiphong has proposed borrowing 500,000 doses of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine while it is awaiting vaccine allocations from the Ministry of Health.
On August 5, Haiphong Chairman Nguyen Van Tung wrote to the Ministry of Health and the HCMC government, stating that since the pandemic had been raging in many parts of the nation and posed a high risk of spreading to Haiphong, vaccines were the need of the hour, the local media eported.
Haiphong currently has more than two million people, including some 1.6 million eligible for the Covid-19 vaccination. However, the Ministry of Health has provided it with nearly 165,000 vaccine doses.
To meet the urgent demand in Haiphong, the city has proposed the Ministry of Health allocate two million doses of the Vero Cell Covid-19 vaccine produced by the China National Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd. (Sinopharm), and 1.2 million doses of vaccines made by other foreign companies.
Meanwhile, HCMC currently has some one million Vero Cell doses, which was delivered to the city on July 31 as part of a vaccine donation from the HCMC-based Van Thinh Phat Group.
On August 4, the Haiphong government announced that the Vero Cell vaccine would be given to three groups: long-haul drivers and driving assistants, workers of Chinese enterprises and those in industrial parks and clusters and residents volunteering to receive the vaccine.
In related news, in a document sent to the HCMC government, hospitals and medical centers of Thu Duc City and districts, the municipal Center for Disease Control and hospitals, the HCMC Department of Health has asked for the completion of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccination doses allocated to the city before August 8 to ensure the effectiveness of the vaccines.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines must be stored at two to eight degrees Celsius and used within 30 days.
The department assigned the municipal Center for Disease Control to review plans to administrate the two vaccines and allocate the vaccines to agencies.
Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Health Nguyen Hoai Nam said Thu Duc City and districts had accelerated the vaccination and completed the fifth vaccination drive. They have started the sixth vaccination drive.
Nearly 159,400 people in HCMC were vaccinated against Covid-19 on August 4, raising the total number of vaccinated people in the city to over 1.43 million.
