Many parents in Hanoi had to spend a sleepless night in rain at a local vaccine research centre to get a French-made vaccine that will protect them from a range of contagious diseases.

From the afternoon of December 24 to early this morning, hundreds of parents in Hanoi started to line up in front of the Centre for Research and Production of Vaccines in the hope they could get the French-made 5-in-1 Pentaxim vaccine named which is in short supply.

Speaking to DTiNews, Phan Van Cong from Ha Dong District, said that he had queued for 17 hours since 3pm along with hundreds of people, including some from other localities such as Thai Binh Province. 

Many parents in Hanoi had to spend a sleepless night to get the French-made 5-in-1 Pentaxim vaccine

“Standing next to me is a couple from Thai Binh Province who travelled some 200 kilometres here on December 23. They hired a nearby room so that they could queue early,” Cong said.

Luong from the Hung Yen Province said that he came to Hanoi first to queue and then this morning, his wife would take his children there. “Following the vaccination accidents in some localities recently, I decided to try to get the vaccine in Hanoi for my son,” Luong said.

Nguyen Thi Xa, who lived near the centre and also spent hours there, said that her family planned to take her nephew abroad for Pentaxim. However, after having known that the centre had Pentaxim, she tried to line up patiently.

Although it was raining, the lines of people still try to keep their place with umbrellas or raincoat.

The crowd offered a very good chance for food and drink services as well as raincoat sellers near the centre to make money.

The crowd offered a very good chance for food and drink services as well as raincoat sellers

Recent outbreaks of serious diseases in Vietnam have alerted local parents of the need to get their children vaccinated, but stockpiles of vaccine seem to almost be exhausted. Although Vietnam can make single disease vaccines in large numbers, it cannot yet make the preferred 5-in 1 or 6-in 1 vaccine, which requires only one shot to immunize children against five diseases, including diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B, pneumonia and meningitis caused by Haemophilus influenza type B bacteria.

Although the Ministry of Health is providing the made-in-South Korea 5-in 1 Quinvaxem vaccine free but  local parents are concerned about post-vaccine reactions after the recent death of babies after receiving it.
 
Some 3.5 million doses of Quinvaxem have been used since early 2015, with ten babies dying after vaccination.

The General Department of Preventive Medicine said there was a shortage of the Pentaxim vaccines and it had been trying to secure supplies overseas.