(Bloomberg) -- Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh directed local officials to accelerate Covid-19 shots in order to fully vaccinate all adults age 18 and older this year, surpassing the nation's inoculation target, the cabinet's news portal reported.
The nation will have enough vaccine doses this month to administer two shots to its entire adult population against the virus by the end of the year, according to the report, which also cited Deputy Premier Vu Duc Dam.
Vietnam had targeted fully vaccinating at least half of people age 18 and older by the end of December and 70% of its entire population by the end of March, 2022. The planning ministry this month proposed increasing that target to 80% of the population during the same period.
The premier, who with Dam spoke to the nation's anti-Covid 19 task force over the weekend, also ordered the quickening of vaccinations for children and to prepare booster shots to those already vaccinated, according to the report.
The government had administered nearly 108 million vaccine doses as of Saturday, according to the health ministry. As of Friday, 53.4% of adults in Vietnam were fully vaccinated, the government website reported, citing information from the same meeting. Local virus cases in November have risen 2.9% from October, though fatalities have dropped 46.3% and hospitalizations are down 25.3%.
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