Italy doubles Covid vaccine donation to Vietnam

By Anh Ngoc September 21, 2021 | 05:15 am PT

A medic holds a vial of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in HCMC. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran

Italy has announced it will donate another 796,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to Vietnam, after handing over more than 800,000 doses last week.

The new doses, provided via the Covax global facility, makes Vietnam one of the top recipients of vaccines from Italy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Italy had sent 812,060 AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Vietnam via Covax September 14.

As of August, Vietnam had received 33 million Covid vaccine doses via Covax, foreign aid and commercial contracts. It is expected to receive another 16-17 million extra doses this month.

Vietnam aims to procure 150 million doses to vaccinate 70 percent of its population by April next year.