24-hour COVID-19 count totals over 13,500 new cases

The capital continued to report the highest number of infections on the day with 1,022 cases, followed by Phu Tho with 838 and Yen Bai with 605.

Since the start of the pandemic, Vietnam has logged a total of 10,489,319 infections, ranking 12th out of 227 countries and territories globally.

Furthermore, 18 deaths were also confirmed over the past 24 hours, duly raising the death toll to 42,975.

Compared with Asia, the total number of deaths ranks sixth out of 49th, third in ASEAN, with the death rate per one million people being 23rd out of 49 Asian countries and territories and fourth in ASEAN.

The Health Ministry also announced an additional 124,630 recoveries on the same day to bring the total number of recovered cases to close to over 9 million.

The average number of new infections recorded over the past week now stands at more than 18,000 daily cases nationwide.

April 18 saw the country inject 178,789 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to push up the total number of administered doses to more than 209.8 million, including more than 192.5 million people aged 18 years and over.

Elsewhere, the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology has decided to allocate an additional 1,382,400 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine donated by the Australian Government to provinces and centrally-run cities to vaccinate children aged from five to under 12 years old.

Together with 921,600 doses distributed on April 14, the institute has allocated over 2.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate the target group.

Of the overall amount, Ho Chi Minh City will receive 193,800 doses and Hanoi will be given 104,000 doses.

As of April 18, a total of 19,526 inoculations had been administered to children of this age group. The injection of the second shots for kids is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of this year.