With the goal of community immunity, Binh Duong advocates free vaccination for all people in the province. Accordingly, in 2021 and 2022, Binh Duong strives to have 95% of the population aged 18 and over to receive 2 full doses of Covid-19 vaccine. In the immediate future and in July 2021, the province will develop a plan to inject 240,000 doses of Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca vaccines granted to the province by the Ministry of Health.
Over 95% of the population to be vaccinated.
Mr. Nguyen Loc Ha, Standing Member and Deputy Chairman of the provincial People's Committee, said that Binh Duong has issued a plan to vaccinate people against Covid-19 in the province in 2021 and 2022. Accordingly, the province is expected to deploy vaccination for more than 1.45 million people (including 255,000 people vaccinated for free under the government's Resolution 21 and 1.2 million people offered the budget and socialization funding for vaccination). The goal set in the period is to have 95% of the population aged 18 and over receive 2 doses of Covid-19 vaccines on a provincial scale. The implementation is in phases from 2021 to 2022 until herd immunity is achieved in the province.
Functional forces are checking vaccines before preservation within the cooling systems
In order to maximize all resources involved in vaccination against Covid-19, the Chairman of the provincial People's Committee requested the health sector to organize the implementation of vaccination immediately after receiving the vaccines to ensuring the coverage rate, high government, safe vaccination and fair access to the people. The health sector also needs to calculate the vaccine supply capacity, giving priority to pre-vaccination for subjects participating in disease prevention and control work and subjects in epidemic areas and all people aged 18 years and over in the locality. The priority level of vaccination is based on criteria such as areas, districts, towns and cities of Covid-19 infection or deaths in the community, districts, towns and cities with high population density, including Thuan An city, Thu Dau Mot city, Di An city and localities with important traffic hubs.
Currently, Department of Health has developed and submitted to the provincial People's Committee a plan to inject 1 million vaccines, which is expected to be implemented in 2 months of July through September 2021. Meanwhile, talking to reporters about the vaccine distribution plan, Deputy Minister of Health Tran Van Thuan said that according to the latest allocation of Ministry of Health on July 12, there will be about 240,000 doses in this July of vaccines of all kinds such as Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer being granted to Binh Duong. Therefore, Ministry of Health suggested Binh Duong should develop a specific vaccination plan to ensure the effectiveness of vaccination and organize vaccination for the right subjects in the spirit of Resolution No. 21 of the government. “The province should consider the specifics of the local epidemic situation as well as the requirement to ensure production stability of industrial parks so that injections can be arranged for workers of some key industrial parks and factories. During the preparation and implementation of vaccination, Ministry of Health suggested the provincial health sector should carefully train vaccination staffs to implement the procedures, regulations and instructions of Ministry of Health on vaccination safety; emergency forces should be ready at vaccination points to promptly handle vaccination accidents if any”.
Ready for receiving and preserving vaccines
As noted by the reporters, currently the provincial Center for Disease Control is the unit that receives and preserves the Covid-19 vaccines at the provincial warehouse. After receiving and preserving the vaccines, the unit will distribute vaccines to the provincial General Hospital and district health centers at least 3 days before the vaccination. District health centers receive vaccines from provincial warehouses to district warehouses for preservation and distribution to communes right before the vaccination session. The communes receive vaccines from the district level and transport the vaccines to vaccination points. Any remaining vaccines after the vaccination session at the injection sites will be transported to the district warehouse for proper storage by the commune health stations.
Dr. Nguyen Hong Chuong, Director of the local Department of Health, said: “Currently, the cold chain system at the provincial and district levels is temporarily responding in the first phase and is capable of receiving, preserving and distributing vaccines against Covid-19 with storage conditions of 2 - 8 Celsius degrees at the provincial and district levels. The system of vaccine storage refrigerators of the provincial Center for Disease Control ensures from 100,000 to 200,000 doses of vaccines. In the case of receiving vaccines in larger quantities, the health sector will coordinate with the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh city to support preservation in a cold storage system that meets the requirements of Ministry of Health.
According to statistics, the whole province has 105 public vaccination facilities and 46 private medical facilities that are eligible for vaccination. Basically, there is a shortage of human resources to participate in expanded vaccination and immunization services in the province; The maximum vaccination capacity is 18,000 doses a day. Therefore, in order to respond to large-scale injections and in a short time, it will have to mobilize the entire medical force to participate, which will partly affect the anti-epidemic activities. Therefore, the health sector will mobilize private health forces to participate in vaccination, and at the same time, establish more mobile vaccination points at companies and enterprises.
Reported by Kim Ha - Translated by Vi Bao
