Vietnam plans to include measles and rubella vaccines in the National Program for Immunization, after studies showed that the number of under one-year-old children requiring vaccination had reached more than 90 percent.
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Vietnam plans to include measles and rubella vaccines in the National Program for Immunization, after studies showed that the number of under one-year-old children requiring vaccination had reached more than 90 percent.
This was discussed at a meeting organized by the Ministry of Health on December 14 in Hanoi, to review 25 years of implementation of the National Immunization Program.
The Ministry of Health has launched a new campaign to include two vaccines, namely, measles and rubella vaccines for children, in an effort to cover at least 95 percent of the population.
Vietnam has so far eliminated poliomyelitic and the rate of children suffering diphtheria, whooping cough and hepatitis B has greatly reduced. In target plans from 2013 to 2014, measles and rubella vaccines will be included in the National Program for Immunization.
Most children in the country are covered by the vaccine, said Dr. Nguyen Tran Hien, chairman of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology and chief of the National Expanded Program on Immunization.
At present, vaccines which protect against 11 diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles, poliomyelitic, typhoid, cholera, mengingtis, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenza type B, are now readily available free-of-charge for children under the age of one and for women in all districts across the country.
(Source:SGGP)
