Health minister warns of prolonged COVID-19 pandemic

Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long (right) speaks at the Cabinet meeting, Ha Noi, August 11, 2021. Photo: VGP

• Gov't orders HCMC to control COVID-19 pandemic before mid-September

Meanwhile, the risk of COVID-19 outbreak remains high in other cities and provinces as a great number of people have returned from pandemic-hit areas but they are not well managed.

So far, Viet Nam has confirmed 236,091 cases, including 232,950 locally-transmitted cases recorded in 62 out of 63 cities and provinces nationwide since April 27.

The national caseload includes 85,154 recovered cases and 4,487 deaths.

The recent spike in daily infection cases in the Southeast Asian country was tied with Delta variant.

The number of daily new COVID-19 cases in Ho Chi Minh City frm July 1 to August

To deal with the pandemic, the Government has tried its best to realize vaccination strategy based on three pillars: (i) purchasing vaccines as much and soon as possible, (ii) accelerating research and transfer of production technology, and (iii) getting people freely vaccinated in a bid to achieve herd immunity in early 2022.

In pursuit of the strategy, top Vietnamese leaders have conducted at least 20 phone conversations with the world’s leaders to discuss on bilateral cooperation against the COVID-19 pandemic.

During these conversations, the Vietnamese leaders asked their counterparts to share their redundant vaccines with Viet Nam or consider transferring production technology to the Southeast Asian country.

To date, Viet Nam received 18 million doses of vaccines from various sources, of which 11 million doses have been administered, accounting for 65 percent of the total, according to Deputy Minister of Health Tran Van Thuan./.

By Huong Giang