Covid-19 vaccination campaign for under-12 children launched in Quang Ninh

On April 14, at Ha Long city’s Tran Quoc Toan Secondary School, the Ministry of Health and Quang Ninh province jointly held a launching ceremony to deploy the Covid-19 vaccination campaign for children aged from 5 to under 12 and respond to the 2022 immunization week.

Prominent among those at the launching ceremony were Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Trinh Thi Minh Thanh, Vice Chairwoman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Thi Hanh,  representatives of the United Nations Children's Fund in Vietnam, and Australian Ambassador to Vietnam.

The launching ceremony aims at affirming Vietnam’s determination to give ultimate priority to the protection of people’s health, especially children, contributing to the socio-economic development in the new normal situation.

Addressing the ceremony, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son affirmed that with the high rate of Covid-19 vaccine coverage for different age groups, especialy high-risk ones, Vietnam is eligible to continue to expand vaccination coverage and deploy vaccinations to other target groups including children aged from 5 to under 12.

The vaccination campaign against Covid-19 for children is of great significance to the protection of children's health during the pandemic, contributing to reducing disease for children and reducing transmission among generations in families and among teachers and students at school. This can significantly help localities to bring life back to normal and achieve socio-economic development goals.

Quang Ninh’s Vice Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Hanh said that Quang Ninh is the first locality in Vietnam to deploy immunization for children from 5 to under 12 years old. The province has also been among those proactively implementing the early and first large-scale vaccination campaign.

So far, Quang Ninh has  safely injected more than 3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to people of 12 years old and older. As of January 27, 2022, the coverage of the third dose vaccine in Quang Ninh has reached 97% of people eligible for vaccination; the rate of giving first doses and second doses to both adults and children from 12-18 years old has currently reached over 99.8%. 

According to the Ministry of HealthViet Nam has around 11.8 million children aged 5 to under 12, of whom about 8.2 million children are thought to have yet been infected with COVID-19

As of April 6, 2022, Quang Ninh has about 182,000 children from 5 to under 12 years old. The injection of 2 doses for eligible children is expected to have been accomplished by the end of the second quarter of 2022.

About 3.6 million Covid-19 infected children will be given the jabs in July and August 2022. Two types of Covid-19 vaccines given to children from 5 to under 12 years old are Pfizer vaccine and Moderna vaccine. The interval between the two injections is 4 weeks.

The injection will take place first for 6th graders, then gradually lower the age. Provinces and cities deploy rollouts according to schools and locations, based on the pandemic situation and the quantity of vaccines provided.

Right after the launching ceremony, nearly 200 children of grade 6 of Tran Quoc Toan Secondary School were vaccinated.