Vietnam offers ten vaccines in immunisation programme
(VOV) - Vietnam has now produced 10 out of the 11 types of vaccines included under the expanded programme for immunisation (EPI).
Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long released the information at a press conference reviewing 25 years of the EPI’s implementation. He said that over the years more than 90 percent of children nationwide have been vaccinated.
Thanks to the EPI, the rate of children suffering from infectious diseases has decreased remarkably. Vietnam eradicated polio in 2000, tetanus for infants in 2005, and the measles in 2012.
The Deputy Minister emphasised that despite these great achievements, the EPI also needed to overcome a number of challenges. Dispatching immunisation health workers to remote areas and areas inhabited by ethnic minority groups proved difficult.
Vietnam has officially operated the EPI since 1985. So far, it has provided 11 types of vaccines inoculating against diseases including tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B, polio, measles, pneumonia, Hib meningitis, Japanese encephalitis, diarrhoea, and women’s and children’s typhoid.