The Government Office has just issued Notice 218/TB-VPCP dated June 10, 2023, concluding the conclusion of Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha at the meeting on vaccine settlement for the Expanded Immunization Program.

The Expanded Immunization Program to prevent infectious diseases that can cause epidemics for children under 5 years old is a national program to protect and care for children's health. Therefore, it needs to be implemented uniformly throughout the country, including centralized procurement of vaccines, ensuring safety, savings and efficiency. The Ministry of Health needs to organize communication to clearly see the effectiveness of this policy.

According to the Ministry of Health, there is currently a shortage of some vaccines in the expanded immunization program: (i) DPT vaccine (to prevent diphtheria - whooping cough - tetanus); (ii) 5-in-1 vaccine (to prevent hepatitis B, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and pneumonia, meningitis caused by Hib bacteria). Ensuring the earliest availability of vaccines is an urgent task, affecting people's health.
The Minister of Health, pursuant to Article 22 of the Law on Bidding, Decree No. 63/2014/ND-CP dated June 26, 2014 of the Government guiding the Law on Bidding, Decree No. 32/2019/ND-CP dated April 10, 2019 of the Government, applies the urgent procurement of vaccines for expanded immunization in the form of designated bidding, bidding, price negotiation, and ordering.

The Minister of Health, in accordance with his assigned functions and tasks, shall proactively and urgently direct and immediately implement appropriate solutions to promptly overcome the vaccine shortage before June 24, 2023.

On June 10, 2023, the Minister of Health will immediately work with production units under the Ministry of Health to supply vaccines for the Expanded Immunization Program; work with manufacturers, suppliers, and importers to negotiate and implement a buy-first-pay-later mechanism. Direct specialized agencies to propose scientific solutions to assess the impact and have appropriate plans for cases of children who have not been vaccinated.

On June 10, submitted to the Government a draft Resolution on budget allocation for purchasing vaccines for the Expanded Immunization Program.

The Deputy Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Finance to preside over and coordinate with the Ministry of Health to draft a Resolution on allocating the central budget to the Ministry of Health to purchase vaccines for the Expanded Immunization Program; submit it to the Government on June 10, 2023.

After the competent authority decides to allocate the budget, the Ministry of Health urgently synthesizes the needs and estimates the budget and sends them to the Ministry of Finance for submission to the competent authority for decision; immediately organizes the purchase and supply of vaccines to localities.

The Minister of Health works with foreign health agencies and the World Health Organization; the Minister of Foreign Affairs directs Vietnamese diplomatic missions abroad to seek sources of support and aid for vaccines for expanded immunization, especially the 5-in-1 combination vaccine to immediately meet the urgent needs of the expanded immunization program.