HCMC – Eighteen out of 22 districts in HCMC have failed to reach 50% of their measles vaccination targets, the city’s People’s Committee said during a meeting on September 5.
The number of measles cases is rising rapidly, particularly among children aged nine months to five years who are either unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated.
As of September 4, the number of vaccinated children in the city had remained lower than the figures registered in the national immunization system, health officials said.
Binh Chanh District had the highest vaccination rate, at 59.3%, while Can Gio District had the lowest, at just 9.3%. The HCMC Center for Disease Control (HCDC) reported 541 measles cases in the city as of September 4, including three fatalities.
Of those cases, 48% occurred in children aged nine months to five years, with 74% of the affected children not fully vaccinated.
During a recent campaign to boost immunization efforts from August 31 to September 3, health authorities administered over 16,000 doses of the measles vaccine.
The HCDC urged local residents to take children to health centers for vaccination. City leaders have asked district authorities to update lists of children aged one to 10, particularly those not yet in school, to ensure they are vaccinated.
