An elderly woman in Phu Nhuan District, HCM City, receives COVID-19 vaccine. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Vu

An "additional dose" is intended to improve immunocompromised people’s response to their first and second dose of vaccine, but a "booster dose" is given to other people when the immune response to the first and second dose is likely to have waned over time.

As for the additional dose, HCM City plans to give it to people who are aged 18 or older with immunocompromised status (organ transplant, cancer, HIV or use of immunosuppressive drugs in the past six months) and have had the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at least 28 days prior to the booster. People aged 50 and over are given priority.

The booster dose will be offered to people 18 years and older who had the second dose of the vaccine at least six months ago. Priority groups are people with underlying diseases, people needing long-term care at medical facilities, people aged 50 or older, and people who directly test, care for and treat COVID-19 patients.

In December, the city will need more than 64,2000 doses of AstraZeneca; next January, 29,400 doses; February, 235,000 doses; March, over 3.1m million doses; April, more than 2.2 million doses of AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Sinopharm's Vero Cell vaccines; May, 422,000 doses; and June, over 157,000 doses of AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Vero Cell and Sputnik V vaccines.

Vaccines reserved for additional or booster doses need to comply with the Ministry of Health’s guidance. 

Additional doses or booster doses will be the same type of vaccine as the earlier shots or an mRNA vaccine. If previous injections were mixed vaccines, additional or booster shots will use the mRNA vaccine type.

If the first or second dose was the Vero Cell vaccine, the booster dose will be of the same type, an mRNA vaccine, or a viral vector vaccine.

As of December 5, more than 7.92 million people aged 18 and over in HCM City had received the first vaccine dose. Of the number, nearly 6.82 million people have received the second dose. 

HCM City prepares for Omicron variant, sets up treatment facility

HCM City is preparing a separate facility solely to treat patients who have the Omicron variant, instead of a facility now housing other COVID patients, Nguyen Thi Huynh Mai, chief of office at the city’s Department of Health, said.

Field Hospital No. 10 in HCM City’s Thu Duc City. HCM City is preparing to set up a treatment facility specifically for patients with the new Omicron variant. No cases with the variant had been confirmed as of Tuesday afternoon. — Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Health

No cases with the Omicron variant in the country had been detected as of Tuesday afternoon.

“The Field Hospital No. 12 at Thu Duc City is slated to become HCM City’s treatment facility for the Omicron variant. The area is not crowded, and the facility can easily categorise different levels of risks.”

According to Nguyen Hong Tam, deputy operation director of HCM City Centre for Disease Control, the city has been carrying out measures to prevent the Omicron variant from entering the city.

For instance, the city is strictly monitoring entry through Tan Son Nhat Airport and Sai Gon Port, focusing on identifying the COVID variant from people who have tested positive.

People entering the city who have received two vaccine shots and have tested negative for COVID will be placed under concentrated quarantine for seven days, and then will quarantine at home for seven more days.

Regarding illegal entries into the city via roads, health authorities are working with local police to monitor and quarantine such people and identify the COVID variant from those who tested positive for the virus.

Locals are encouraged to follow pandemic preventive measures, and notify local authorities about anyone who has entered the city without making health declarations.

The city is also working on giving locals a booster vaccine shot for people who have received two shots.

Hospitals in HCM City have been instructed on how to restructure themselves to facilitate COVID patients admission, with areas for screening and temporary quarantine.

Local medical centres and mobile medical stations are to be reinforced to ensure timely assistance for COVID patients at home.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has proposed halting all flights, including repatriation flights, from and to 10 African countries, amid fears about the Omicron variant.

The HCM City University Medical Centre has also launched a clinic for post-COVID conditions such as chest pain, lung damage, breathing difficulty, loss of taste and anxiety.

The clinic is for people who were initially asymptomatic but began showing symptoms after they tested negative for the virus; people with lingering symptoms or whose lungs or organs have been damaged; and patients who had severe symptoms when they had the disease.

HCM City has been recording a rising number of daily COVID cases and deaths over the last few weeks.

Source: Vietnam News

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