The Ministry of Health will cancel the program to vaccinate H1N1 to high risk groups like pregnant women, health workers and people with chronic diseases.

The decision was made after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the retreat of global H1N1 epidemic.

Vietnam has not received any dose of H1N1 vaccine from the WHO for clinical tests. Last year it planed to take around 1.2 million H1N1 doses from the WHO.

In Vietnam, H1N1 didn’t spread in Vietnam in early months of 2010. After four months without any patients, a little girl in HCM City died of H1N1 on August 3. Pandemic experts worried that the flu may return to Vietnam.

Nguyen Tran Hien, Dean of Central Institute for Epidemiology, admitted that it is very difficult to anticipate the development of flu epidemics.

Though it cancelled the H1N1 vaccination program, Vietnam will supervise any flu cases.

Since May 21, 2009, Vietnam has had 60 deaths related to H1N1. The current H1N1 virus is the type that caused the great epidemic in 2009.

PV