Many brand-name vaccines not covered by the national immunisation programme have run out at public hospitals in HCM City despite warnings from suppliers of shortages as early as September last year.

According to Nguyen Tran Hien, director of the Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, vaccines provided by the national expanded immunisation programme were not in shortage but the more expensive brand name vaccines for the same diseases.

On Monday, the city's Pasteur Institute published a list of vaccines for diphtheria, whooping-cough, tetanus and paralysis produced by Sanofi-Aventis and Glaxo Smith and Kline, that were in short supply.

The HCM City's Paediatrics Hospital No 2 announced similar supply shortages after they ran out of Japanese encephalitis, meningo-encephalitis A + C, measles and rubella vaccines. Paediatrics Hospital No 1 also reported they had exhausted their supplies of Meningo-encephalitis A + C and typhoid vaccines.

Nguyen Ngoc Anh Tuan, deputy head of the Examination Unit of Pasteur Institute, said vaccine suppliers had informed the institute last September of supply shortages.

The current shortage was particularly problematic, said Tuan, since substitutes were not available and suppliers maintained a monopoly on distribution.

According to Tuan, problems with importation procedures have prevented companies from successfully importing the vaccines. Asked when the problem would be settled, Tuan replied he had no idea when suppliers would be able to deliver the vaccines. Meanwhile, children at the Pasteur Institute continued to be turned away for vaccinations.

To respond to the shortage, Nguyen Viet Hung from the Ministry of Health's Department of Pharmaceutical Management has ordered the city's Department of Health to source suppliers for the vaccines in shortage.

Director of the department Truong Quoc Cuong, pinned the blame on procedures that required health clinics to wait until patients requested vaccinations before purchases could be made.

The Pasteur Institute administers more than 200 vaccinations everyday, while during the peak of epidemic seasons, the number can be up to five times higher. Average vaccinations at Paediatrics Hospital No 2 total 100 per day.