Updated date: 10/29/2023 15:45:01
Looking back over the past 3 years of preventing and fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the Prime Minister assessed that Vietnam is one of the countries that "comes later but comes first" in preventing and fighting the pandemic.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (Photo: VNA)
This content was emphasized by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at the online conference summarizing the COVID-19 prevention and control work of the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control with localities on the morning of October 29.
In his opening speech, the Prime Minister affirmed that, with the spirit of putting people's health and lives first, we have overcome the COVID-19 pandemic - a dangerous pandemic of global scale, causing serious consequences for both human health and life and the socio -economic development of countries around the world.
Vietnam has become one of the countries that "comes later but arrives first" in epidemic prevention and control, opening domestic socio-economic activities from October 11, 2021 and opening to the international community from March 15, 2022.
The Prime Minister acknowledged that under the leadership of the Party, the management of the State, the involvement of the entire political system, the participation of the people and businesses, the support of friends and international partners, the important thing is that we have united, unified, and worked together as one, doing things that seemed impossible, bringing peace to the people and continuing the country's development.
Emotionally recalling the difficult and arduous moments in epidemic prevention and control, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stated that we have gone through the most difficult times with many worries and concerns in an unprecedented epidemic situation, unable to predict the situation, the ability to spread and the virulence of the virus, as well as the consequences of infection.
According to the Prime Minister, epidemic prevention and control at that time was "extremely difficult", "difficult on all sides" when "there was nothing else at hand", no vaccine, no test kit... besides the health system established under normal conditions. This system can meet the requirements under normal conditions but cannot meet the requirements under abnormal, emergency medical conditions.
The Prime Minister said that we have put forward a vaccine strategy with three important elements: First, establishing a vaccine fund to mobilize financial resources. Second, conducting vaccine diplomacy to access vaccines in the context of "money cannot buy" due to unequal access to vaccines. Third, implementing the largest vaccination campaign ever, free of charge for the entire population.
Regarding vaccine diplomacy, the Prime Minister noted that all diplomatic missions abroad have participated in vaccine mobilization by all means (receiving aid, borrowing, lending, buying back...). As a result, about half of the hundreds of millions of vaccine doses that Vietnam has received are from aid sources.
Overview of the conference. (Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac)
Another difficulty mentioned by the head of the Government is mechanisms and policies. To overcome this, the Government has submitted to the National Assembly Resolution No. 30/2021, creating a solid legal basis for the Government to decide on a number of special and specific mechanisms to meet urgent requirements in the practice of epidemic prevention and control.
The Prime Minister recalled the timeline of October 11, 2021, with a fairly high vaccine coverage rate, a lot of experience gained, and a suitable epidemic prevention and control formula determined, the Government issued Resolution No. 128, marking a strategic shift towards safe and flexible adaptation, effectively controlling the COVID-19 epidemic.
And on October 20, 2023, COVID-19 was officially reclassified from group A infectious disease to group B in Vietnam.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked delegates to evaluate the leadership, direction and implementation of all levels, sectors and localities in the prevention and control of the epidemic, focusing on assessing the results achieved. At the same time, acknowledge the shortcomings and limitations, share good practices, effective movements and models in the prevention and control of the epidemic to draw lessons.
From there, according to the Prime Minister, we will be better prepared to respond to public health emergencies, while at the same time, flexibly and creatively applying them to other areas of socio-economic life.
The conference summarizing the work of preventing and fighting the COVID-19 epidemic was held to look back on more than 3 years of efforts to fight COVID-19, the pandemic that recorded its first case in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China.
The conference took place in the context of the pandemic being well controlled thanks to great efforts and drastic and effective solutions of a global and national nature; the economy gradually recovering and developing, and people's lives returning to normal.
According to ENGLISH (VTC News)
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