Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam approved the Ministry of Health’s proposal to implement administration of vaccine against Japanese encephalitis for kids aged from 6 to 14.
For the very first time Vietnamese kids aged from 6 to 14 years old were injected with the vaccine aided by The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). Before, in the National Expanded Immunization Program, vaccine against Japanese encephalitis was injected for children from 1 to 5 years old from 1997 and more children at various ages were administered the vaccine.
So far, ten million children had been immunized the vaccine. In 2014 the rate of children were injected with two shots of Japanese encephalitis vaccine reached nearly 93.7 percent. The Ministry decided to include the vaccine in the program will help children have full vaccine before 12-month old.
By statistics at hospitals lately, amongst patients having encephalitis due to virus, the rate of Japanese patients is 8-13 percent, a drastic decrease compared to previous years.
