Five people who were among the first in Vietnam to be injected with a COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca/Oxford have experienced side effects, according to the Ministry of Health.

Since the launch of the COVID-19 vaccination on Monday, a total of 522 medical workers, who are directly treating COVID-19 patients, conducting sampling and testing, and performing contact-tracing tasks, have received the shots, according to the Expanded Program on Immunization.

Specifically, 107 of them come from the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases – Dong Anh District Branch in Hanoi, 104 are employees at the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases, and 206 work at the medical centers of Hai Duong City and Kim Thanh District in northern Hai Duong Province.

Thirty-six others come from Thanh Nhan Hospital in Hanoi and 69 work at the field hospital for COVID-19 treatment in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai.

The AstraZeneca shots injected into the health workers are among the 117,600 COVID-19 vaccine doses that Vietnam currently has.

The Expanded Program on Immunization assessed that the COVID-19 vaccination has been safely carried out in the past days.

The cases with post-injection reactions are within the anticipated rate.

So far, the Expanded Program on Immunization has recorded five cases of post-vaccination complications, the vast majority of which are common side effects that had been recommended in advance such as muscle aches, fatigue, fever, headaches, chills, painful swelling at the injection site, and nausea.

The cases with postvaccinal reactions have been monitored and handled at the hospital. All of them are now in stable health.

According to the regulations of the Ministry of Health, COVID-19 vaccination sites must meet strict standards for storing and preserving the vaccines, be arranged to include functional areas for reception, waiting, clinical screening, vaccination rooms, post-injection monitoring rooms, and anaphylactic treatment rooms with one-way rule, be equipped with anaphylactic treatment boxes, and comply with epidemic prevention regulations.

The Ministry of Health also requires pre-vaccination screening on all vaccinated people.

They have to be given guidelines on how to monitor their health and note post-injection reactions.

Vietnam recorded no new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday morning.

The national patient tally stood at 2,526 infections, with 2,004 recoveries and 35 virus-related deaths, according to the Ministry of Health’s data.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!