HCM City permitted to purchase COVID-19 vaccines

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam on June 15 approved HCM City’s proposal to purchase and import COVID-19 vaccines for local use.

In a proposal submitted to the Prime Minister the same day, the HCM City administration said the city has received 140,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine allocated by the Ministry of Health, and half of the total have been administered.

With about 8.8 million people aged 18 and above, including 1.6 million workers at industrial parks, the city regards the purchase of VOVID-19 vaccines as an urgent task, in an attempt to reach herd immunity.

It therefore proposed that the PM allow local businesses seek and import the vaccines from reliable vaccine manufacturers globally for local use.

The city also proposed that the PM allow local businesses to hire units specializing in vaccination to inoculate their officers and employees as soon as the vaccines are licensed and shipped to Vietnam.

The fresh coronavirus outbreak has struck all of its 22 districts and towns, with more than 800 positive cases confirmed since the virus recurred in Vietnam in late April.

Local authorities said despite containment efforts the outbreak remains complicated in the city as a number of chains of transmission have been recorded recently and the sources of infection are unknown.