Ministry orders to strengthen epidemic prevention to curb Covid resurgence

Accordingly, the Ministry of Health stated that although the Covid-19 epidemic is basically under control nationwide, there has been an increase in cases of the disease, hospitalizations and severe cases in recent times along with the appearance of new sub-variants of Omicron such as BA.4, BA.5 which spread faster than previous variants.

Therefore, the Ministry of Health requested departments of health to advise municipal and provincial people's committees to continue directing the effective implementation of the Government's Resolution 38/NQ-CP promulgating the Covid-19 epidemic prevention and control program to strengthen epidemic prevention and control measures, to achieve the goal of disease control, to prevent the outbreaks.

Moreover, administrations are proactive and ready for possible outbreaks of Covid-19.

In particular, the Ministry of Health requested related agencies and localities to focus on further accelerating Covid-19 vaccination, especially the third and fourth shots for each group of people including children from 5 to under 12 years old according to the Ministry’s instructions.

The Institutes of Hygiene and Epidemiology/Pasteur should give professional support to units and localities in monitoring, epidemiological investigation, sampling, preservation, and transportation of samples to ensure quality and biological safety for early detection and timely treatment of cases with the aim to minimize the transfer of severe disease and deaths.

On the evening of the same day, the Ministry of Health said that during the day, the country had an additional 1,377 cases of Covid-19 and 9,648 recoveries. Currently, 50 severe Covid-19 patients were requiring oxygen and put on ventilators.