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Hau Dinh/AP
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam is dashing up its vaccination program in an effort to loosen coronavirus lockdown restrictions in main cities by the tip of the month, the federal government mentioned Monday.
Well being staff administered vaccines all through the night time within the capital, Hanoi, which has been below lockdown since July.
Greater than one million vaccine photographs got over the weekend in Hanoi, out of round 5.5 million administered there since vaccinations began in March, the Well being Ministry mentioned.
“We have now to hurry up the vaccination program so we are able to make a plan to reopen town,” Hanoi mayor Chu Ngoc Anh mentioned Sunday. Greater than half of the nation’s 98 million inhabitants can also be below lockdown.
About 80% of town’s 5.7 million adults have acquired no less than one shot, with authorities aiming for 100% by the tip of this week.
Nonetheless, the nation’s total vaccination fee nonetheless stays low at about 28%, and solely 4% have been totally vaccinated with each jabs.
Vietnam managed to maintain its an infection fee comparatively low up till April this 12 months, with solely 35 deaths. Final 12 months it was praised for maintaining the virus below management, an accomplishment usually attributed to the self-discipline of being a single-party communist state with tight controls in any respect ranges.
However vaccine shortages compelled Vietnam to decelerate its vaccination program in current months, even because the delta variant of the virus contaminated over 600,000 folks and killed greater than 15,000 in simply 4 months.
In Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, the nation’s enterprise hub and most hard-hit by the surge, over 95% of adults have acquired the primary vaccine, however many who want to return in for the second dose aren’t capable of get it because of low provides.
Amongst measures to deal with the scarcity, Vietnam’s well being authority has allowed combos of various two-dose COVID-19 vaccines to hurry up the vaccination marketing campaign. Specialists say this tactic is probably going secure and efficient, however researchers are nonetheless gathering knowledge to make certain.
Vietnam is presently utilizing AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Sinopharm, a Chinese language-made vaccine.
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