Vietnam’s two largest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, are facing new outbreaks of the Covid-19 pandemic following the detection of Omicron subvariant BA.5 and the slow pace of vaccination.
According to deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Health Vu Cao Cuong, the city has registered three infections caused by the BA.5 sub-strain of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
“The capital reported 1,538 cases between June 28 and July 4, a 36.5 percent increase from the previous week,” he said.
The official explained that the increase was due to people’s negligence, along with limitations in communication work.
By July 3, 99.9 percent of the local population over the age of 18 had had at least one injection of Covid-19 vaccines, 96.5 percent had received a third dose and 15.6 percent had received a fourth dose.
For children aged 5 to 12, only 20.07 percent have been administered with the first dose, said Tran Thi Nhi Ha, director of the municipal health ministry. of authorities and the public.
At a meeting on July 6, deputy secretary of the city’s party committee Nguyen Van Phong stressed the need to step up the fight against the pandemic with the greatest sense of responsibility and accelerate vaccination.
At a Thursday meeting, Ho Chi Minh City Health Department Director Tang Chi Thuong also expressed concern about the new Covid-19 outbreak in the area following the recent detection of Omicron BA.4, BA.5 subvariants.
“The number of daily Covid-19 infections has risen slightly over the past three weeks,” Thuong said. “We have reported more than 50 infections every day for the past three weeks, compared to 30 cases in the previous weeks.”
Since June, the city has tightened control over the new sub-variants of Covid-19 in 22 districts and Thu Duc City. The Pasteur Institute will carry out gene sequencing to detect new carriers of subvariants.
Thuong called on locals to quickly take their booster Covid-19 vaccine shots to prevent another outbreak of the pandemic.
A total of 913 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in Vietnam on July 6, according to the Ministry of Health, bringing the national number to more than 10.75 million.
The country has so far administered more than 234 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines.
@ Vietnam News Agency