HCMC to fix 700,000 inaccurate vaccine records

A government portal report cited Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam as saying Tuesday that Ho Chi Minh City must quickly update its Covid testing and vaccination data so the effectiveness of technology usage in the Covid-19 fight could be evaluated.

Vo Thi Trung Trinh, Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Information and Communication, said the department has cooperated with the municipal Department of Health, military-run telecom giant Viettel and local authorities to launch a national vaccination app.

However, there have been challenges in uploading the data online and making them available. Normally, raw vaccination data from the city would be uploaded onto a common database, and the Ministry of Information and Communication would re-organize them and send them back to the city for use. But this process has not gone smoothly as planned.

As of September 20, the city still had around 700,000 Covid vaccine certificates with inaccurate results, said Trinh.

"The city has mobilized around 1,000 volunteers from tech companies across Ho Chi Minh City to correct the data," she said, adding that the job could be done within this week.

While the city’s vaccination data is currently uploaded onto a digital health app, there have been reports that the app doesn’t work correctly at times, displaying wrong information or even removing vaccination status outright without explanation.

A VnExpress survey on September 12 found 71 percent of around 10,000 respondents saying their vaccine certificates were missing, while 25 percent said the app didn’t work as it should.

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Health had requested all localities to upload residents' vaccination data onto databases before September 20.

Vietnam has vaccinated around 28.7 million people with at least one Covid-19 vaccine shot. Around 6.9 million people have been fully vaccinated.

The country aims to secure 150 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to cover 70 percent of its population by next year.