Nguyen Thi Huynh Mai, office manager at the Department of Health, said Monday the city is now focused on immunizing people aged 12-17 and students and workers from other localities living in HCMC.

A health worker prepares a Covid-19 vaccine shot in HCMC's District 1, October 27, 2021.

The department said it would work with local authorities to come up with detailed plans to vaccinate children aged three to 12.

The department will announce the vaccination plan once it is approved by the Ministry of Health and it provides specific instructions.

According to the ministry's guidelines for children aged 12-17, children who had Covid-19 are eligible for vaccination.

They can be vaccinated as soon as they complete their quarantine period.

This is in contrast to the ministry's guidance to delay vaccination by six months for adults who had the disease.

Two types of vaccines have been approved for people aged 12-17, one by Pfizer and the other by Moderna.

HCMC, Binh Duong, Soc Trang in the south and Ninh Binh in the north have begun vaccinating children aged 12-17. As of Monday night, around 516,000 children have received their first vaccine shots. HCMC began vaccinating children starting October 27, and has vaccinated over 445,000 by October 31.

The country has vaccinated around 57.3 million adults at least once and given two shots to 24.6 million.

Children under 18 account for around 17 percent of Covid infections, according to data from the ministry.

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The HCMC Health Department plans to begin vaccinating 780,000 children against Covid-19 starting Wednesday, first in the downtown District 1 and the outlying Cu Chi District.

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Source: VnExpress