HANOI, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam spent nearly 45.1 trillion Vietnamese dong (1.9 billion U.S. dollars) from the state budget for the COVID-19 prevention and control work in 2022, local newspaper Nhan Dan (People) reported on Thursday, citing the country's health ministry.
The amount was lower than over 51.2 trillion Vietnamese dong (nearly 2.2 billion dollars) spent in 2021, the ministry announced at the second extraordinary meeting of the 15th National Assembly.
Vietnam flexibly implemented a number of restrictive measures to prevent and control the pandemic including those that had not been applied before or not stipulated in laws in urgent situations, the health minister Dao Hong Lan said.
According to a report submitted to the National Assembly, Vietnam will consider downgrading COVID-19 from a Class A infectious disease, classified as "especially dangerous" to Class B "dangerous."
It will also continue its COVID-19 vaccination program, focus on enhancing the health system and further improving the quality of human resources, as well as handle post-COVID-19 issues and strengthen the inspection to promptly detect wrongdoings and corruption in pandemic prevention work.
As of Thursday, Vietnam has reported more than 11.5 million cases of COVID-19 infections including nearly 43,200 deaths. More than 10.6 million cases have recovered and over 265.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, according to the health ministry. ■
