Amid increasing demand of vaccine and severe shortage of the drug, Nguyen Tat Dat, Deputy Head of the Ministry of Health’s Pharmaceuticals Management Department July 10 said that the Ministry ensures enough vaccine in the National Expanded Immunization Program.
Moreover, the Ministry always facilitates the condition for importers who supply other vaccine on private needs of people.
However, for a time, there was a shortage of vaccine for private need in some localities as the supply can’t meet the increasing demand of parents. In addition, it takes time to test the product quality before launching to the market.
Dat also revealed that more vaccine will be imported in the time ahead. For instance, 10,000 doses of the 5-in-1 Pentaxim vaccine imported by Hong Thuy Company will arrive on July 20. Another 35,000 doses of 5-in-1 vaccines imported by May Cosmedic Company will be available in August and September.
Shipments of 100,000 doses of the 6-in-1 Infanrix Hexa vaccine imported by the Company for Vaccine and Biological production No.2 are scheduled to arrive on August 15 , while 135,000 doses of chickenpox Varicella-GCC vaccines will be imported by the National Phytopharma Company in batches in mid-July, August and September, added Dat.
Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien ordered medical clinics where administer vaccine shoots to arrange more doctors and increase working hours to help ease the overcrowding at these clinics and facilitate parents who take their children to medical clinics for vaccination. If necessary, more medical facilities should be opened in commune for immunization.
Medical workers are asked to carry out right vaccination procedure and carefully exam children before vaccine administration in order not to have vaccine injuries. Medical clinics actively place orders to vaccine importers to satisfy the increasing demand.
The Ministry also ordered medical workers to encourage parents to bring their children for taking vaccine in the National Expanded Immunization Program.
