A combined measles-rubella vaccine is expected to be available forchildren aged nine months to 14 years within a year or two, according tothe Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute.

Another vaccine, which is only for measles, was already available forchildren aged nine months. At 18 months, they receive a booster shot.

The information was released by Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong, Head of theInstitute's Disease Control Ward at a recent workshop on the nationalvaccination programme in the southern region in the city.

All children at least nine months old got their first measlesvaccination last year, but not every child in the country received thebooster shot, Phuong said.

The national vaccinationprogramme provided 987,366 measles vaccine shots to babies last year,including two separate injections. Last year, as much as 12.2 billionVND (580,952 USD) were allocated for the national vaccination programmefor young children in the southern region.

The programmeprovides free vaccines for the following: tuberculosis, hepatitis B,diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, poliomyelitis, pneumonia,meningitis caused by haemophilus influenza type b (Hib), Japaneseencephalitis, cholera, typhoid and measles.

Last year, the programme covered 170 districts and gave vaccines to prevent all of these diseases from 1.5 million babies.-VNA