Seven million vaccine doses for children aged 5-11 to arrive in Vietnam

According to the Ministry of Health, the remaining 14.9 million doses are expected to be delivered in April. As soon as the vaccines arrive, the ministry would administer them to children aged 5-11.

In detail, children aged between 5 and 11 in Vietnam will be administered with Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine with a dosage of 0.2ml, while people aged from 12 will receive 0.3ml of Pfizer each dose.

Earlier, the ministry on March 1 issued a decision amending Article 1 of a decision on conditional approval of vaccines for urgent needs in COVID-19 prevention and control.

Duong Thi Hong, deputy head of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, said health authorities are aiming for 95 percent of children to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

While COVID-19 vaccination would not be mandatory for children aged 5-11, health experts would try to persuade parents to let their children be vaccinated based on scientific evidence, she added.

An online survey by the health ministry last month on whether parents would let children under 12 be vaccinated against COVID-19 found that out of 415,000 respondents, 60.6 percent agreed, 1.9 percent refused, 29.1 percent said they would consider it, and 7.6 said they would allow the vaccination if it was mandatory.

So far, Vietnam had administered 193.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. All of Vietnam’s adult population have received their first COVID-19 vaccine shot and 97.9 percent their second. Meanwhile, 98.6 percent of children aged 12-17 have received their first shot and 93 their second.