Over 1.2 mln AstraZeneca vaccines arrive in Vietnam

Arriving at Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat International Airport on Friday, the batch is part of a deal for 30 million doses VNVC ordered from Swedish-British developer AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

After the first batch arrived in February, four more have been delivered. In all, more than 3.13 million doses have reached Vietnam to date.

So far, Vietnam has obtained nearly 8.6 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine with others arriving via global vaccine access mechanism Covax and support from other governments.

The vaccine currently accounts for 77 percent of those in Vietnam.

The rest comprise two million Moderna doses donated by the U.S., 200,000 Pfizer doses from a deal for 31 million secured by the Ministry of Health and 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine gifted by China.

Nitin Kapoor, chairman and general director of AstraZeneca Vietnam, said the company would continue its cooperation with the Health Ministry, World Health Organization, United Nations Children’s Fund and VNVC to "hand over the vaccine to Vietnam as quickly and safely as possible."

Vu Thi Thu Ha, supply director at VNVC, said the company is "making efforts to strike deals with other vaccine developers to access more sources of high-quality vaccines."

The AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use in 89 countries and territories.

Vietnam has so far vaccinated more than 4.41 million of its 96-million population against Covid-19, but only 334,560 have gotten two doses.

The nation, caught in its worst Covid-19 community wave ever, targets to inoculate 70 percent of its population by next April.