Da Nang to begin Covid-19 vaccination for hospital workers

Le Thanh Phuc, director of Da Nang Lung Hospital, on Thursday said 100 Covid-19 vaccine doses from British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca, which arrived late last month, had been transported by the Ministry of Health to cold storage facilities run by Vietnam Vaccine JSC in Da Nang on Wednesday.

"The vaccine doses would be used to inoculate employees at Da Nang Lung Hospital on Friday morning," local media reported Phuc as saying.

Da Nang, the former Covid-19 epicenter of Vietnam's second coronavirus wave in July last year, fortunately recorded no community cases in the most recent outbreak affecting 13 cities and provinces since January this year. A national Covid-19 vaccination campaign, Vietnam's largest yet, commenced Monday, prioritizing frontline workers in areas with recent outbreaks.

Vietnam has ordered 30 million Covid-19 vaccine doses by AstraZeneca, of which around 117,600 doses had arrived last month. The country would also receive an additional 4.1 million AstraZeneca doses via global vaccine access mechanism Covax by April, and another 25.9 million doses between August and November.

Vietnam is also negotiating with other vaccine manufacturers in the U.S., Russia and some other countries to ensure it could obtain a total 150 million doses this year to cover 70 percent of its population.

The coronavirus tally so far in Vietnam is 2,529, with 486 active cases.