Vietnam adjusts Covid control target

Hanoi, March 18 Vietnam has switched its target in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic from controlling infections to controlling serious cases and deaths only, while heading to remove the disease from its "especially dangerous" list.

The approach was specified in a government resolution issued on Thursday about Covid-19 prevention and control work in 2022 and 2023, reports Xinhua news agency.

Vietnam's overarching goal in the period is to ensure effective disease control, protect the life and health of the people, minimize the number of serious illnesses and deaths caused by disease, and enable economic recovery and development, the document said.

Thanks to high vaccination coverage, the death number in Vietnam has been decreasing in recent months.

In the past week, though new infections rose 16 per cent to over 171,400 cases per day on average, fatalities declined by 14 per cent to 75 cases, according to data from the Health Ministry.

Till date, over 201 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines had been administered to a population of about 98 million.

Based on the real situation, the country will consider delisting Covid-19 as a Class A infectious disease, the list of diseases that are classified as "especially dangerous," and to view it as just a "dangerous" infectious disease.

According to Vietnamese regulations, Class A infectious diseases include those with high infection and death rates, like polio, influenza A-H5N1, plague, Ebola, Lassa and Marburg hemorrhagic fever, West Nile fever, yellow fever and cholera.

In April 2020, the government declared Covid-19 a national epidemic, listing it as a Class A infectious disease.

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