On March 27, Mr. Phan Huy Thuc - Deputy Director of the Hai Phong Department of Health - said: Since the beginning of the year, the whole city of Hai Phong has recorded 382 cases of suspected measles rash in 14/15 districts, towns and cities; no deaths. Of which, Bach Long Vy is the only locality in the area that has not recorded a case of measles. On average, the city has 27 hospitalizations for measles examination and treatment each day, of which 60.2% of cases have not been vaccinated against measles. The number of people with measles has increased rapidly in the past 2 weeks, of which the most cases in children are over 10 years old (26.2%), the group of children under the age of vaccination (under 9 months) accounts for 14.9%.
Notably, the group of vaccinated age but have not been vaccinated against measles with the highest rate (45.3%).
According to the assessment of the Hai Phong Department of Health, measles is very likely to spread through the respiratory tract, especially in crowded environments such as schools and residential areas. Hai Phong is a large city with a high population density, so the risk of spread and outbreak is high. Although the measles vaccination rate has reached a high level in recent years, there is still a part of young people who have not been fully vaccinated, reducing community immunity.
According to the leader of the Hai Phong Department of Health, the Measles epidemic is still under control but there is still a risk of increasing the number of cases. The city needs to continue developing solutions to limit the spread of diseases and increase widespread disease detection to effectively control the epidemic. During the implementation period, the Department of Health directed units to continue reviewing unvaccated groups to avoid missing subjects, and at the same time requested localities to complete the measles vaccination campaign against the epidemic by March 31, 2025 in accordance with the direction of the Ministry of Health and the City People's Committee.
The Department continues to drastically implement regular vaccination and dosage vaccination in the following period of 2025 to achieve the set target of over 95% of children under 1 year old being fully vaccinated with 8 types of vaccines. Regarding vaccine sources, the City Center for Disease Control has fully provided them to District Health Centers" - said the leader of the Hai Phong Department of Health.
