Vietnam seeks Covid-19 vaccine access from India

In a telephonic conference with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi Saturday, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked India to transfer its vaccine production technology to Vietnam and received an affirmative response.

The Indian PM said India was ready to help Vietnam gain quick access to Covid-19 vaccines.

He also congratulated Vietnam over its achievements in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic and advancing socio-economic development. He affirmed that India wants to promote political, economic, defense-security and cultural ties with Vietnam.

In the current context, the two leaders affirmed that they will work together and support each other in fighting the pandemic, maintain high-level exchanges in a flexible format – online or in person when conditions permit – and expand cooperation in defense as well as U.N. peacekeeping operations.

The two leaders also agreed to work together towards achieving the $15 billion goal in annual bilateral trade through promoting trade, cutting technical barriers and limiting trade protection measures against each other’s exports, especially Vietnam's farm produce.

According to the Ministry of Health, about 105 million doses from various sources have been committed for use in Vietnam, where the vaccination campaign using the AstraZeneca vaccine began in March.

Around four million of the country’s 96 million people have got shots, with 271,409 of them getting both doses. It targets vaccinating 70 percent of the population by April 2022.

Vietnam has so far approved the emergency use of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, China’s Sinopharm, the one made by Pfizer in the U.S. and BioNTech in Germany, British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca and U.S.'s Moderna.

Since late April, Vietnam has been dealing with its fourth Covid-19 wave, its most challenging so far, with nearly 25,000 infections recorded to date.