659,900 doses of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine in the contract to pre-order 30 million doses of VNVC, arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on the morning of July 29.
This is the sixth vaccine delivery in the contract and the fourth time in a row in the last three weeks of July. Vietnam Vaccines Joint Stock Company (VNVC) has imported a total of 3.8 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, equivalent to about 41% of the total AstraZeneca vaccine in Vietnam has been supplied from different sources.
Previously, on February 24, the first batch was imported with 117,600 doses, the second batch arrived on the evening of May 25 with 287,600 doses. After that, the vaccine came back more regularly, one batch per week, in which the third batch on 9/7 with 580,000 doses, the 4th phase on 15/7 with 921,400 doses, the 5th phase on 23/7 with 1,228,500 doses. All these shipments are transported to Tan Son Nhat airport, cleared for customs clearance and transferred to VNVC's cold storage, before being transferred to the Ministry of Health for distribution to localities.
A cold container containing the AstraZeneca vaccine is being brought from the plane to the ground at Tan Son Nhat airport. Photo: Phong Lan.
Thus, in the past 6 months, the whole country has received nearly 9.3 million doses of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine, through three sources: VNVC contracts, Covax Mechanism and aid between governments. AstraZeneca vaccine is accounting for about 62% of the supply of Covid-19 vaccine in the country.
The rest are 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine donated by China, more than 5 million doses of Moderna donated by the US, and nearly 200,000 doses of Pfizer under the contract of the Ministry of Health.
In total, up to now, Vietnam has received more than 14.8 million doses of vaccines, from many sources and types of vaccines.
Nguyen Nam Lien, Director of Planning and Finance, Ministry of Health, said that in the face of the current complicated situation of Covid-19, vaccines have proven to be an important "weapon" towards community, put an end to the epidemic early, and return to normal life soon.
"The Ministry of Health thanks the efforts of AstraZeneca and VNVC to speed up the supply of vaccines, helping Vietnam to fight back the outbreak soon and ensure economic development," Mr. Lien said.
As of July 28, a total of more than 5.3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered nationwide (with a single injection of 4,825,209 people, with a second injection of 496,630 people).
The AstraZeneca vaccine is the first Covid-19 vaccine licensed by Vietnam to support the national vaccination program. There are also licensed vaccines Pfizer, Moderna, Sinopharm and Sputnik V.
Reference as VNExpress