In a meeting on Monday to discuss the rollout of COVID-19 vaccination campaign, Da Nang People's Committee Chairman Le Trung Chinh urged the health agency to maximize the use of resources to achieve widespread vaccination coverage by the end of 2021 as there are not enough doses for everyone.

Da Nang is developing an action plan for COVID-19 vaccination rollout in order to make sure that all eligible people will get vaccinated. In the photo: A woman got vaccinated against COVID-19 in the Tien Son Sports Palace in July 2021. Photo: PHAM DANG KHIEM

The capacity reaching the vaccination of around 20,000 people a day

Chairman Chinh urged district authorities to keep their local residents informed about the city’s long-term COVID-19 vaccination programme with high priority given to inoculating people with underlying medical conditions and seniors.

The focus must be paid on deploying sufficient forces to vaccination sites to ensure security and safety in these venues, making emergency response plan, and taking all necessary measures to allow space for social distancing and ensure the safety of vaccines.

The Da Nang Military Command is working with the Military Region 5 to transport vaccines to vaccination venues. The health sector will provide contact details of medical consultants for vaccinated people to help them seek advice. In addition, the city is calling on youth union members and university students to join the city’s vaccination campaign. The health agency will continue to give advice to the municipal government to ask for COVID-19 vaccine and medical equipment support from Viet Nam’s national government to help the city to realize the city’s goal of herd immunity.

The health agency will set up 100 vaccination sites across the city in order to inoculate about 20,000 people each day. It has also organised COVID-19 vaccination training for all health workers involved in implementation of COVID-19 vaccination in accordance with the guidance from the Ministry of Health. The intention is to make sure that all of them have adequate knowledge and skills in order to ensure safe and efficient COVID-19 vaccine administration. In particular, the health agency has called on retired healthcare workers to return to attend the city’s vaccination campaign.  

Till date, 140 COVID-19 vaccine teams have been established and will be deployed to vaccination sites.

A hemodialysis patient at the Da Nang General Hospital gets vaccinated against COVID-19. Photo: PHAN CHUNG

Ensuring the safety of vaccinated people

Doctor Tran Thanh Thuy, the Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Health, said that 112,400 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca, 67,200 doses of Moderna, 5,850 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech will be delivered into 8 batches to Da Nang by Ministry of Health. Since the beginning of March, 97,850 vaccine doses have arrived in the city. Till date, 67% of the allocated vaccines have been administered in Da Nang.

Till date, 58,329 vaccine doses have been administered in Da Nang through six phases of the city’s COVID-19 vaccination drive, in which, 7,456 people have had the two full doses.

Data released by the municipal Department of Health indicate that 20% of the vaccinated people experienced common reactions after receiving a vaccine, and only one person suffered a severe reaction following immunisation, but she received timely treatment and has already recovered without complications.

“Da Nang now has 1.2 million inhabitants, of whom, 826,000 age 18 and above. The city is in need of 1.6 million vaccine doses to give full two doses of COVID-19 vaccine to all adults. Da Nang will achieve herd immunity by late 2021 if there will be enough COVID-19 vaccine delivered to the city to vaccinate all adults aged ≥18 years”, said Doctor Ngo Thi Kim Yen, the Director of the municipal Department of Health.

Reporting by LE HUNG – Translating by H.L