EU may consider transferring vaccine technology to Vietnam: ambassador

Giorgio Aliberti, the EU ambassador to Vietnam, said the subject could now be discussed since more countries are set to produce Covid-19 vaccines, and Vietnam has "potential" in vaccine manufacturing.

The Serum Institute of India has signed a contract with British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca to produce 70 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine a month, which should give India a marked advantage in the fight against the pandemic, he said, speaking to the media on Tuesday.

Asked by correspondents about safety concerns over the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine and others distributed through global vaccine access mechanism Covax, he said the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee, the European Medicines Agency's committee responsible for assessing and monitoring the safety of human medicines, has concluded that the vaccine's benefits far outweigh its potential risks, and that cases of blood clots are exceedingly rare.

He said the AstraZeneca vaccine should continue to be used, and the decision is based on scientific evidence.

The EU is a sponsor of Covax, which planned to donate to Vietnam around 4.1 million doses by April. But Dang Duc Anh, director of the National Institute Of Hygiene And Epidemiology, said due to the difficulties in vaccine manufacturing around the world, the handover could be delayed.

Vietnam began a mass Covid vaccination program using the AstraZeneca vaccine earlier this month, starting with frontline workers.

Around 38,000 people have received their first shots.