Proactively responding to sub-variants of Omicron

Vaccination against Covid-19 helps our bodies creates active immunity, but over time (about 4-6 months), antibodies will gradually decline. Responding to sub-variants Omicron BA.4, BA.5, Binh Duong has proactively set up scenarios and plans for pandemic prevention and control. Especially, the province has promoted booster shots of the Covid-19 vaccine to increase people’s antibodies against pathogens.

Proactive response to sub-variants of Omicron

The number of Omicron infections is increasing and they have appeared in countries and territories around the world. In Vietnam, the Ministry of Health has announced cases of Omicron variants recorded in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city. Facing the complicated developments of the current Covid-19 pandemic, provincial Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control has implemented a plan to respond to Omicron variants. This is a positive and proactive move of the province to effectively control the Covid-19 pandemic in the new situation.

Ben Cat town promotes vaccination against Covid-19 with additional and booster doses for people

Nguyen Loc Ha, member of provincial Party Standing Committee, Vice-Chairman of provincial People's Committee said that the province has set out groups of solutions to deal with sub-variants Omicron BA.4, BA.5. The province has assigned the health sector to update domestic information on Omicron sub-variants. Especially, sectors prepare anti-pandemic measures and organize effective propaganda activities. The health sector cooperates with localities to fully and promptly administer additional and booster doses of Covid-19 vaccine under the guidance of the Ministry of Health. In addition, the sector needs to consolidate and synchronously deploy the local anti-pandemic system; get flexible response depending on the severity of the pandemic caused by Omicron sub-variants. The objective is to effectively implement measures to prevent variants from entering; detect the earliest occurrence of Omicron sub-variants in the province. The health sector is proactive and ready to control and intervene in a timely manner to minimize the impact of the pandemic on people's health and socio-economic activities if dangerous variants occur in the province.

It is known that sectors and localities have actively set up scenarios and plans to be ready to respond to the situations of Covid-19 pandemic. In localities, along with improving the capacity of the grassroots health system, they also ensure drugs, supplies and medical equipment under the “4 on-site” motto, being ready to mobilize and supplement human resources. In the case of detecting people infected with the sub-variants of Omicron BA.4, BA.5, localities expand epidemiological investigation, conduct fast tracing and send suspected samples for testing.

Doctor Huynh Minh Chin, Deputy Director of provincial Department of Health said: "Under the direction of provincial People's Committee, provincial Department of Health is accelerating the progress of vaccination against Covid-19 for those aged at 5 and above; reviewing to conduct vaccination for all high-risk subjects, people aged at 50 and above, those with underlying diseases and is further deploying additional and booster shots to increase herd immunity".

Additional, booster shots strengthened

Currently, the health sector and localities are speeding up the vaccination schedule, but people have a subjective mentality, thinking that vaccination still causes infection while being afraid of sequelae after injection, which leads to the underutilization of the vaccine. As of July 12, the province administered more than 160,700 Covid-19 vaccine doses for children aged at 5 to 11, more than 315,300 shots for children aged at 12 to 17 and more than 6.2 million shots for people aged at 18 and above.

A woman gets a booster shot of Covid-19 vaccine at provincial Rehabilitation Hospital

In order to fulfill the vaccination target under the amount of vaccines granted by the Ministry of Health, provincial health sector has mobilized all forces for vaccination. In order to create favorable conditions for workers and not affect the production and business activities of enterprises, the health sector has coordinated with provincial Industrial Parks’ Management Board to bring mobile vaccination teams into factories to inject workers. Thuan An city is currently a locality with the highest rate of the 3^rd shot injection in the province with more than 275,900 people. Nguyen Thi Hien, Vice-Chairwoman of Thuan An city People's Committee shared that over the past time, the city paid great attention to dissemination of information about Covid-19 vaccination among people. Leaders from the city to wards and communes regularly monitored the injection rate at units. For areas with the low rate of infection, leaders of the city came down and found out the causes, discussed solutions and had specific instructions. Meanwhile, localities set up detailed injection plans, assigned specific tasks, fully prepared equipment to serve injection teams so that people would not have to wait long to get vaccinated.

Discussing the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccine, Assoc.Prof.Dr.Nguyen Lan Hieu, Director of Ha Hoi Medical University Hospital cum Director of provincial General Hospital said that in fact, during the recent pandemic, vaccines protect people against pandemic disasters. Some recent studies show that people reinfected are still at risk of serious illness and require intensive resuscitation treatment. Getting additional and booster shots of the Covid-19 vaccine will increase protective antibody levels, reducing the number of hospitalizations, severe cases and deaths.

Reported by Kim Ha-Translated by Kim Tin