Vietnam kicks off COVID-19 vaccination campaign

HANOI - Vietnam's Ministry of Health on Monday started a COVID-19 vaccine inoculation campaign, the country's largest vaccination campaign in history, with over 100 million injections expected to be conducted nationwide, Vietnam News Agency reported Monday.

The first doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine began to be given at 8:00 am local time Monday to health workers directly treating COVID-19 patients in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, the southern Ho Chi Minh City and the northern COVID-19 epicenter Hai Duong province.

The Ministry of Health said that vaccination is an important, effective, proactive and indispensable measure in the process of COVID-19 pandemic prevention, and a top priority for the government to help bring lives back to normal.

In the coming days, vaccination will start in other cities and provinces that have been hit by the latest wave of COVID-19 infections, targeting people working on the frontline against the epidemic such as health workers, personnel at quarantine facilities as well as contact-tracing teams, police and national defense forces in the localities.

Vietnam received the first batch of 117,600 doses of COVID-19 vaccine from the British company AstraZeneca on Feb 24.

As of Monday morning, the country has recorded 2,512 cases of COVID-19 infection, according to its Ministry of Health.