VIETNAM

Vietnam began receiving PIVI support in 2016. With PIVI support, the General Department of Preventive Medicine (GDPM) within the Ministry of Health and the Vietnam office of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted a vaccine acceptability survey among healthcare workers in July 2017. Vietnam also conducted Flu Working Group Training through the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) and a Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceptions (KAP) Questionnaire with technical support from PIVI.

In early 2017, the Ministry of Health of Vietnam, with financial and technical assistance from PIVI and the CDC, vaccinated nearly 11,000 health care workers with season flu vaccine in 29 health care facilities across the country. Read more about this vaccination program here.

In 2019, Vietnam developed communications materials and conducted four healthcare worker workshops for influenza vaccination. In 2020, they conducted three regional healthcare worker workshops and as well as AEFI (Adverse Event Following Immunization) surveillance in 24 provinces.

IVAC, Vietnam’s in-country vaccine manufacturer, received a license of their influenza vaccine in 2019 and is the only manufacturer in Vietnam. PIVI purchase vaccine from IVAC for donation to Vietnam’s Ministry of Health to ensure program growth and secure IVAC’s production capacity. PIVI supported the vaccination of a targeted 135,000 health workers during 2020/21, and worked with CDC and the Vietnam Government to monitor vaccine uptake and acceptance. UPS Foundation’s support provided 25,000 doses of vaccine for this campaign.

This vaccination campaign built experience and infrastructure which smoothed the way for COVID-19 vaccine rollout, including building workforce capacity (training vaccination staff), and creating a pre-registration process for identifying and enumerating vaccine recipients.  Lessons learned from influenza vaccine safety monitoring during this campaign will also be used to monitor and evaluate COVID-19 vaccine safety in Vietnam.