Vietnam can buy Covid-19 vaccines for all citizens

The committee said in a report that apart from VND18.1 trillion ($795 million) from the state budget, the Covid-19 vaccine fund has raised VND8.693 trillion, which means Vietnam now has around VND26.8 trillion, sufficient for purchasing vaccines needed to inoculate 75 million of its 96 million population.

The vaccine fund was set up in May to raise contributions from various sources, including private companies and citizens, to ease the state budget’s burden.

By the end of September, Vietnam had spent VND15.534 trillion buying vaccines – VND7.96 trillion from the vaccine fund and the rest from the state budget, the committee said.

The nation now has VND11.27 trillion left – VND10.53 trillion from the state budget and VND733 billion from the vaccine fund – that can be used to purchase more vaccine doses.

Vietnam aims to procure 150 million doses of vaccines at an estimated cost of VND25.2 trillion to cover 70 percent of its population this year, the Health Ministry had announced earlier.

In a report sent to the National Assembly, the government said that by mid-October, Vietnam had secured deals for 191.5 million Covid-19 vaccine doses as aid and via commercial contracts.

The nation had received 92.5 million doses so far.

As of Wednesday, over 49 million people had received at least one Covid-19 vaccine shot and 19.5 million people had been fully vaccinated.