Hundreds of parents waited outside vaccination centres last night in Ha Noi to get their children vaccinated, while braving the cold, with the temperature reportedly dropping to 14 degrees Celsius.

Dong, a parent from Thanh Oai District, told Vietnamplus in front of the POLYVAC vaccination centre at 182, Luong The Vinh, that when he arrived at the centre about 3am, there were already hundreds of people waiting.

Dong said he was going back home as the centre would only vaccinate 140 children today. He was just one among many parents who had return to their homes empty-handed after waiting the whole night for the vaccines.

The POLYVAC vaccination centre at 182, Luong The Vinh announced at 7.30am that it had cancelled the vaccinations today because of the chaos caused by the crowd outside.

The centre asked parents to take allotted numbers and return to their homes, and said it would announce the names of those who could bring their children to be vaccinated at 7pm today on its website. However, many parents insisted that the vaccines should be handed out on a first-come-first served basis.

The police could not do much to calm the parents as they refused to leave the premises and were determined to wait even till tomorrow.

This is the first time a vaccination centre has had to close down because of security issues.

Head of the health ministry's department of preventative medicine Tran Dac Phu said the city would hold a meeting with all the vaccination centres today to work out a solution.

He said parents should stay calm and try their best to maintain order at the city's vaccination centres.

Hundreds of parents had started queuing up in front of vaccination centres after the Drug Administration of Viet Nam announced that 200,000 doses of Pentaxim vaccine –manufactured by France-based Sanofi Pasteur SA – would be arriving in the coming days.

A woman was fainted.

VNS/VietNamNet