The Ministry of Health said that to increase prevention effectiveness for infectious diseases amongst kids, since June, 2016 some more vaccines would be added into the National Expanded Immunization Program in which infants between two and four months old will be injected with a free vaccination.
Following the Ministry’s decision, vaccine against Japanese encephalitis, measles-rubella; two types of vaccine that protect against polio including oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) and inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV); oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) would be included in the program in June this year and inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) which is given as an injection in the leg or arm, depending on the patient's age would be freely injected to kids from 2017. Vaccine against diarrhea caused by virus Rota would be used from 2018.
Head of the Department of Preventive Medicine Dr. Tran Dac Phu said that the inclusion of these above-mentioned vaccines into NEIP aims to give people more chance to access to more vaccines to delete dangerous infectious diseases completely.
Because diseases were plaguing in the past time, Vietnam has implemented immunization campaigns such as free Japanese encephalitis, oral vaccination for kids under five, free-of-charge measles and rubella vaccination for 20 million children from one to 14 years old for the first phase and for teens at 16-17 year old for the second phase to prevent disease outbreaks and transmission.
Moreover, the Ministry of Health will continue giving more vaccines into the program such as vaccine against dengue fever and against influenza A/H5N1.
