Vietnam receives another 1.5 mln Covid vaccine doses from US

The new batch followed three previous vaccine donations from the U.S. to Vietnam through Covax, totaling to 7.5 million doses so far, according to a Saturday press release by the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi.

The doses came directly from the Pfizer manufacturing plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

In addition to the vaccine donation, the U.S. has committed more than $26.7 million in Covid-19 related assistance to Vietnam since the start of the pandemic, the embassy said.

The U.S. is the largest single country contributor to Covax, contributing $4 billion to support the mechanisms' procurement and delivery of Covid-19 vaccines to 92 low- and middle-income economies.

Vietnam has vaccinated around 33.1 million people with at least one Covid-19 vaccine shot. Around 9.8 million people have been fully vaccinated.

The country aims to secure 150 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to cover at least 70 percent of its population by next year.