Since October 30, Vietnam has begun flu vaccinations with a new shot developed specifically for people aged 60 and older. The product from the French company Sanofi is now available at VNVC vaccination centers across the country.
The vaccine contains four times as many antigens — the components that trigger an immune response — as a standard dose. As VNVC Medical Director Bat Thi Trinh explained, the immune system weakens with age and responds less well to vaccines. The higher dose is meant to elicit a stronger immune response in older people, who are at particular risk of flu complications, especially if they have chronic heart or lung disease or diabetes.
Clinical trials showed that the new vaccine is 24.2% more effective than the standard one. The product protects against three flu virus strains — A/H1N1, A/H3N2 and B/Victoria — whose composition is updated annually on the recommendation of the World Health Organization. By September 2025, more than 360 million doses of this vaccine had been used worldwide; it is recommended for older people in the United States, Canada, Germany, France and about two dozen other countries.
In the first hours after vaccinations began, hundreds of registrations and administered shots were recorded at nearly 300 VNVC centers nationwide. One of the first recipients was 63-year-old Dao Thi Suong from Ho Chi Minh City. She said she gets a flu shot every year and has become sick less often. In her words, older people should get vaccinated to preserve their health and quality of life. Another city resident, 60-year-old Tran Thi Hong Loan, has asthma. She chose the new vaccine in the hope of avoiding a severe course of flu, which could trigger attacks.
According to the WHO, about a billion cases of seasonal flu are recorded worldwide each year. Between 3 and 5 million of them are severe, and between 290,000 and 650,000 people die from respiratory-related complications. Flu can trigger a heart attack or stroke, and for people with heart and lung disease, the risk of death from it rises 5 to 20 times.
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