Vietnam Institute Distributes WHO-, UNICEF-Aided 5-in-1 Vaccine Doses in Aug

The National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, under the Vietnamese Ministry of Health, decided to distribute 185,000 doses of the five-in-one vaccine granted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to 49 localities in August, local media reported.

The Vietnamese institute made the decision after completing the quality checks for the DPT-VGB-Hib vaccine doses, which arrived in Hanoi on July 27 to serve Vietnam’s expanded immunization program.

With the new distribution, all 63 localities will have been provided with five-in-one vaccine doses in August. Earlier, 72,300 doses of the five-in-one vaccine were supplied to 14 northern mountainous provinces from domestic donors.

Like many other countries around the world, routine immunization services in Vietnam have been disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in 114,000 children under one year old missing vaccinations for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis in 2022.

Due to the recent shortage of the five-in-one vaccine, which must be bought from foreign suppliers, an estimated 300,000 Vietnamese children born at the beginning of 2023 have yet to receive this essential vaccine. (Suc Khoe Doi Song, Vietnam Plus English)