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Ho Chi Minh City sets target to administer 4 million COVID-19 shots this month.
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The city records 100,557 Covid-19 cases since the fourth wave began on April 27.
In an urgent document sent to the Ministry of Health, vice-chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Duong Anh Duc stated that the city is expected to further expedite the vaccination process and give over four million shots to local residents this month.
The city plans to provide vaccine doses to 70 percent of citizens age 18 and older by August 31, Duc added. The official thus asked the health ministry to consider continuous allocation of COVID-19 vaccine shots to Ho Chi Minh City, Tuoi Tre Newspaper reported.
A total of 3,096,770 vaccine shots have been distributed to the southern metropolis, of which over 1.7 million have been administered.
During the fifth inoculation, which lasted from July 22 to August 2, more than 920,000 shots were given to local residents.
The campaign targeted all residents age 18 and older, with priorities given to people over 65 years old, those with underlying health conditions, and frontline workers.
Ho Chi Minh City has 6,966,626 residents age 18 and older, and needs approximately 13.8 million vaccine shots to vaccinate 99 percent of these citizens.
Vietnam had documented 165,339 COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday afternoon, with 46,965 recoveries and 1,881 deaths.
The country has recorded 161,482 local infections in 62 provinces and cities, including 100,557 cases in Ho Chi Minh City, since the fourth wave began on April 27.
More than 6.2 million vaccine doses have been administered across the nation since inoculation began on March 8, with 712.860 people fully vaccinated, according to Tuoi Tre Newspaper.
Vietnam on Monday received 1.188 million more AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses from global vaccine access mechanism Covax, according to the UNICEF.
The Vaxzevria vaccine batch was delivered from a manufacturing plant in Spain and is now stored at the National Institute of Hygiene And Epidemiology in Hanoi.
“As we face the surge of cases, we need to accelerate and ramp up our efforts in vaccinating the health workers, the elderly and those with underlying conditions,” said Kidong Park, the WHO Representative for Vietnam, a UNICEF press release stated.
So far, Covax has provided Vietnam over 8.6 million Covid-19 vaccine doses by AstraZeneca and Moderna.