AstraZeneca promises Vietnam another 8 mln Covid vaccine doses by August

At a meeting with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Nitin Kapoor, chairman and general director of AstraZeneca Vietnam, promised to try to persuade the firm to send at least eight million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam within July and early August, despite an ongoing global vaccine shortage.

He added he would report back to the company to consider reducing the price of Covid-19 vaccine doses for Vietnam.

AstraZeneca would assist Vietnam with producing domestic vaccines and other essential drugs to treat cancer and cardiovascular diseases, among others, he said.

Chinh at the meeting requested AstraZeneca to allow every opportunity for Vietnam to have at least 10 million Covid-19 vaccine doses by early August to serve the nation's free, safe and effective vaccination campaign.

So far, Vietnam has received around 4.5 million Covid-19 vaccine doses produced by AstraZeneca, either through contracts, global vaccine access mechanism Covax or foreign aid.

The country has inoculated about 3.5 million people since March, of whom more than 182,000 have received two shots.

Vietnam seeks to secure 150 million vaccine doses this year to cover 70 percent of its population.