A woman takes a medical screening test before getting vaccinated against Covid-19 in HCMC. HCMC could not have enough Covid-19 vaccine doses for its large-scale vaccination drives in the next days – PHOTO: VNA

HCMC – HCMC could not have enough Covid-19 vaccine doses for its large-scale vaccination drives in the next days, as the stock of vaccine doses provided by the Health Ministry has dwindled to mere 500,000 doses while the city has administered over 250,000 doses per day.

According to the municipal Department of Health, the city vaccinated more than 262,000 people yesterday, August 7. Among them, 398 experienced post-vaccination reactions, but all of them were safe. From July 22 to August 7, the city had inoculated over 2.1 million people.

The city has been allocated over 2.59 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines by the Health Ministry since July 22 to date. Given its currently high vaccination speed, the city from tomorrow could lack Covid-19 vaccine for its large-scale vaccination rollouts, the department said.

The city has ramped up Covid vaccination since the fifth drive which began on July 22. Aside from vaccinating priority groups as it did in the previous drives, the city in the fifth drive has administered all residents aged over 18 and those in quarantined or lockdown areas.

Also, it mobilized private health care facilities to join the drive, streamlined vaccination procedures, carried out the vaccination program even in the evening. In addition, it doubled the number of vaccination teams to 1,200 units.

These changes enabled the city to reach its vaccination target for the fifth drive. The city began the sixth drive on August 3.

The municipal government on August 3 wrote to Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, head of the national steering committee for Covid-19 infection prevention and control, proposing the additional allocation of 5.5 million vaccine doses from August 5 to 31.

During this period, the city needs an average of 210,000 doses per day. If the proposal is approved, the city could reach its target of administering seven million people aged over 18 citywide.

In response to the proposal, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked the Health Ministry to continue to allocate more vaccine doses to southern localities, including HCMC, and to map out the next vaccine allocation plans.

Up to now, HCMC has been given the largest amount of Covid-19 vaccine doses in the country, at over four million doses.