The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health has resumed the usage of a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine batch after ordering a suspension as experts ruled out its involvement in the death of a newly-vaccinated person.

The health department requested all districts and Thu Duc City to stop administering Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses from the batch coded FK0112 on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control (HCDC).

It asked medical units to wait for expert opinions on a fatality reported after getting inoculated with a vaccine from the same batch.

Meanwhile, during a press conference shortly afterward, Dr. Nguyen Thi Huynh Mai, chief of office of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, said that the suspension of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine batch’s usage was prompted by administrative issues.

The usage could be back on track once the issues were tackled, according to Mai.

At the meeting the health department convened later on the same afternoon, medical experts initially concluded that there was no evidence that the vaccine batch’s quality had anything to do with the person in question’s fatality.

The experts added that they were looking forward to the results of the forensic examination on the deceased person before coming to a final conclusion on the exact cause of their death.

Following the meeting, the HCDC informed medical units to continue using the batch’s Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses to immunize people.

Ho Chi Minh City’s health workers have administered over 6.8 million first doses and more than 2.9 second shots of COVID-19 vaccine to residents, according to the national COVID-19 vaccination portal.

Nationwide, over 40 million have been administered, with nearly 8.6 million people fully vaccinated.

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