Vietnam to receive 20 million Russian-made vaccine doses

By Le Nga   June 2, 2021 | 04:01 am PT
Vietnam to receive 20 million Russian-made vaccine doses
A medical staff prepares to inject Covid-19 vaccine on a person. Photo by VnExpress/Huu Khoa.
Vietnam is set to receive 20 million doses of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine this year, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said Wednesday.

"This is the positive result of a period of non-stop negotiation by the Ministry of Health," he said.

Vietnam had greenlighted the use of Sputnik V vaccine in March after doing the same for the one made by AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish pharmaceutical and biotechnology firm in collaboration with Oxford university.

The health ministry is seeking to partner with global vaccine producers in transferring knowhow in order to ensure vaccine security and future exports.

A unit of the health ministry, Vabiotech, is scheduled to start producing Sputnik V vaccine in Vietnam with a capacity of five million doses a month from July.

The ministry is also negotiating with other producers like Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson&Johnson to purchase more vaccines.

It has completed negotiation to purchase 38.9 million doses from the World Health Organization’s global sharing facility called Covax. However, only a small amount has been delivered under this so far.

The nation is set to get 31 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer/BioNTech and 30 million from AstraZeneca.

Vietnam targets to have 150 million doses this year to vaccinate 75 percent of its population.

It has recorded 4,597 local cases in its latest Covid-19 wave that began April 27.

 
 
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