Only certain groups of vaccine recipients will have to undergo blood pressure measurement before their inoculation while others will be able to skip this step following the Vietnamese Ministry of Health’s new guidance issued on Friday.

People subject to blood pressure checking include those with a history of high or low blood pressure, over 65 years old, or having underlying heart diseases.

The new procedure will start with checking the recipient’s medical history, followed by clinical assessment of body temperature, blood pressure in required cases, pulse, and respiratory rate in people with a history of heart failure or abnormal findings such as chest pain or difficulty breathing.

Medical staff must then observe the recipient’s general conditions to decide whether to go on with the inoculation or transfer them to another vaccination facility that is capable of handling anaphylactic reactions.

The health ministry’s new guidance also advises caution against six groups of vaccine recipients.

They include people with a history of allergies, underlying diseases or chronic diseases, losing consciousness or their behavioral capacity, or suffering thrombocytopenia and blood clotting disorders, and women over 13 weeks of pregnancy.

The last group is those with abnormal vital signs, such as body temperature below 35.5 degrees Celsius or higher than 37.5 degrees Celsius, too slow or too fast pulse, or blood pressure 30mmHg higher than normal.

The guidance also requires the delay of vaccination for people with a history of COVID-19 infection within six months, acute illnesses, and women pregnant less than three weeks.

Meanwhile, vaccination shall be contraindicated for cases with an anaphylactic reaction to the same type of COVID-19 vaccine in the previous injection or with any contraindication as announced by the vaccine manufacturers.

Vietnam had administered over 26 million COVID-19 vaccine doses as of Friday, including over one million injections on Thursday.

Some 4.5 million people have been fully vaccinated.

The country has received about 33.5 million doses of vaccines in total and is expected to get millions more by Sunday.

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