Localities urged to apply IT to increase vaccination capacity

The Ministry of Information and Communications and Ministry of Health has called on localities to take full advantage of information and technology to administer vaccinations rapidly and effectively.

Speaking at an online conference on IT applications in COVID-19 prevention and control, Đỗ Công Anh, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Information and Communications Department of Informatisation emphasised that utilising IT in the vaccination campaign would ensure the campaign’s transparency.

Four vaccination management platforms have been built by the military-run telecom group Viettel under the guidelines of the two ministries, including the electronic health record app, a portal for COVID immunisation information at tiemchungcovid19.gov.vn/portal, a system supporting national vaccination at tiemchungcovid19.moh.gov.vn, and an MCC Centre, with its database to be managed centrally and transparently.

The databases of these platforms are strictly managed, ensuring transparency of information for both people and State management agencies. The vaccination management system has been implemented in five steps from vaccination registration to post-vaccination monitoring.

People can register to get a COVID-19 vaccine via the e-health record application and immunisation information portal. After receiving the information, departments of health in specific areas will guide people to vaccination sites.

The health departments will be in charge of allocating vaccines to vaccination sites. After being vaccinated, people can track their vaccination records via the two platforms.

The data will be centrally managed on the national COVID-19 vaccination management platform and will support the National Immunisation Steering Committee to monitor vaccination results and manage the entire nationwide vaccination campaign.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyễn Huy Dũng said the vaccination management platform was capable of managing vaccines from their arrival in Việt Nam, to their storage, distribution, and shipping to vaccination sites and to the point of injection. Each dose, each batch, each type of vaccine has been tightly managed at each vaccination site.

"The IT application will help us deploy the vaccination campaign more rapidly and conveniently,” he said.

Võ Thị Trung Trinh, Deputy Director of the HCM City’s Department of Information and Communications said the application of the national vaccination management platform in the fifth phase of the city-wide vaccination campaign has increased the number of vaccinated people to 930,230 after 10 days.

"In the fifth phase, the vaccination programme has accelerated very quickly. In the first days there were only a few thousand injections per day. But the number has reached over 100,000 per day in recent days,” she said.

Trinh also said the department had suggested measures to deal with unexpected situations that arise in different localities.

In addition, the city also recommended the department send IT staff to standardise vaccination registration data and ensure the apps were being used effectively.

The department will make a list of people that need to be vaccinated on the national immunisation portal and e-health book app and use pandemic data to point out the hot spots where rapid vaccination is needed.

Anh confirmed the practice of using the IT applications in HCM City was a valuable test case for expanding the technology nationwide.

He has asked the departments of health and information and communications to register for vaccination via the e-health record application or immunisation information portal tiemchungcovid19.gov.vn.

All vaccination sites, including mobile ones, must be connected to the internet. Technological systems and platforms related to COVID-19 vaccination would be further upgraded, he said.