Health workers collect a swab sample from a member of the media during COVID-19 coronavirus testing in Hanoi on July 12, 2021. (NHAC NGUYEN / AFP)
Vietnam faces a stiff challenge as it seeks to rein in its deadliest COVID-19 outbreak, with the nation’s vaccination campaign falling short amid insufficient supply.
The crisis fueled by the Delta variant of the virus has highlighted the need for the Southeast Asian country to step up mass inoculations, as lockdown measures are hurting the economy and people’s livelihoods, experts said.
“The calculus now is to protect the healthcare system and to try to reduce the number of people coming into hospital and dying.The only way you can do that, at least to the medium and long term, is through vaccination,” said Guy Thwaites, director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, or OUCRU, in Ho Chi Minh City.
He noted that the highly transmissible Delta variant has been able to evade the good measures that the Vietnam government has put in place, causing a large number of infections.
Since late April, Vietnam's COVID-19 tally has increased from lessthan 3,000 to 524,307 as of Sept 6, according to reference website Worldometers. The number of deaths also rose from 35 to 13,074. Around half the infections and 80 percent of fatalities were recorded in Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam was earlier hailed for keeping the pandemic under control, with the country reporting low infection numbers and fatalities for more than a year until April. But the latest wave, which involved a large outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s biggest city, has changed the whole story.
Since late April, the Southeast Asian country’s COVID-19 tally has increased from less than 3,000 to 524,307 as of Sept 6, according to reference website Worldometers. The number of deaths also rose from 35 to 13,074. Around half the infections and 80 percent of fatalities were recorded in Ho Chi Minh City.
On Sept 2, residents in Binh Duong, a southern province neighboring Ho Chi Minh City and also a COVID-19 hotspot in Vietnam, lined up to receive their first COVID-19 jabs. The province began a vaccination campaign on that day, using one million Sinopharm vaccine doses sent by Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnamese national radio broadcaster The Voice of Vietnam reported.
The vaccine doses were part of five million shots purchased by local company Saigon Pharmaceutical, which was licensed by the Vietnamese health ministry for import of jabs to speed up the country’s inoculation campaign.
China’s Sinopharm vaccine is one of the six COVID-19 vaccines that the Vietnamese Ministry of Health has approved for emergency use.
With the spike in infections amid the Delta variant of the virus, Vietnam is seeking to accelerate vaccine supply to boost inoculations across the nation of 97 million people.
A woman receives a shot of COVID-19 vaccine in Hanoi, Vietnam Sunday, June 27, 2021. (HAU DINH / AP)
Despite the government’s efforts, as of Sept 1, only about 17.81 percent of Vietnam’s population had received at least one jab, and only 2.8 percent of people were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, figures from Oxford University's Our World in Data project showed. This made Vietnam among countries with the lowest vaccination rates in Asia
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Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, who is also the head of the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control, has urged the World Health Organization to send more vaccines, and has also directly contacted vaccine manufacturers like AstraZeneca and Pfizer for more vaccine supply.
He also called for prioritizing the production of homegrown COVID-19 vaccines.
China was the first country that provided Vietnam with COVID-19 vaccines in large quantity.
During a meeting with the Chinese ambassador to Vietnam, Xiong Bo, in Hanoi last month, Chinh said strengthening anti-pandemic cooperation is a top priority for the bilateral cooperation between Vietnam and China, and the best vaccine is the one that can be given as early as possible.
Despite the government’s efforts, as of Sept 1, only about 17.81 percent of Vietnam’s population had received at least one jab, and only 2.8 percent of people were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, figures from Oxford University's Our World in Data project showed. This made Vietnam among countries with the lowest vaccination rates in Asia.
OUCRU’s Thwaites said Vietnam’s early success in keeping the infections and fatalities low had meant less pressure and demand for mass vaccinations, compared to other countries, until the latest outbreak that began in late April.
But now, there is a growing sense of urgency. Thwaites noted that almost all healthcare workers in the country have been vaccinated, and more than 50 percent of adults in Ho Chi Minh City have received their first vaccine shots.
Maurizio Trevisan, dean of health sciences at VinUniversity in Hanoi, said the government is aggressively pursuing purchases of COVID-19 vaccines in the market and seeking donations.
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Local residents walk past a makeshift barricade of parked trucks to stop unauthorized travel at a neighborhood in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, on July 30, 2021, amid a lockdown imposed by the government to stop the spread of the coronavirus. (NHAC NGUYEN / AFP)
“The next few months will be very challenging,” said Trevisan, noting that it will take time for Vietnam to secure enough vaccine doses due to the global inequality in availability of those jabs. Vaccine distribution will also take time, he told China Daily.
Chinh, the Vietnamese prime minister, said on Sept 1 that vaccines and drugs are “long-term strategy and decisive tools” to fight the pandemic, according to online newspaper VnExpress.
It’s always a very delicate balance between the livelihood of people and the financial implication of a lockdown versus the health implications.
Maurizio Trevisan, dean of health sciences at VinUniversity in Hanoi
“We cannot stay in isolation and lockdown forever because the difficulty it places on the society and economy is huge,” said Chinh. In Ho Chi Minh City, the epicenter of the current outbreak, lockdown measures have been extended till Sept 15, while Hanoi has been looking at extending the current social distancing order beyond a Sept 6 deadline.
Vietnam’s manufacturing sector saw an intensified downturn during August amid the nation’s worst COVID-19 outbreak. The Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 40.2 in August, down from 45.1 in July, signaling the worst deterioration in the health of the sector since April 2020, according to a report released by London-based information provider IHS Markit.
“It’s always a very delicate balance between the livelihood of people and the financial implication of a lockdown versus the health implications,” said Trevisan from VinUniversity.
Before vaccines are in place, a few more weeks of lockdown would be “a great help” to Vietnam’s COVID-19 situation, Trevisan said, but added that lockdowns cannot be sustained for a very long time without affecting the financial well-being of the people.
READ MORE: Vietnam PM warns of long COVID-19 fight as cases surge
Roger Lord, senior lecturer of medical sciences at the Australian Catholic University, said low rates of vaccination will mean a greater number of people will become infected, become severely ill and require hospitalization. The number of individuals dying from the virus will also increase.
When vaccination rates remain low, there is also an increased chance of new viral variants arising in the unvaccinated population further compromising the efficacy of available vaccines, said Lord.
“Sourcing sufficient supply of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccinating the population must be a matter of urgency,” he told China Daily, referring to the Vietnam situation.
kelly@chinadailyapac.com