Vietnam to receive 3 mln Moderna doses this weekend

"Three million Moderna vaccine doses supplied by the U.S. under the Covax facility are expected to arrive in Vietnam on July 25," ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said at a press meet.

Hang said gaining access to various vaccine sources quickly along with mass vaccination were important solutions being applied to inoculate 70 percent of the Vietnamese population and reach herd immunity this year.

A representative from the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi had informed the foreign ministry of the incoming three million Moderna vaccine doses on July 16.

The U.S. had delivered two million doses of Moderna vaccine to Vietnam through the Covax program on July 10.

Vietnam aims to secure 150 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to cover 70 percent of its population, and has so far negotiated successfully for 105 million doses. As of July 12, the country had received around eight million doses, either through contracts, global vaccine access mechanism Covax or foreign aid.

As of Thursday, more than 4.36 million people, or 4.5 percent of the population, have received at least one coronavirus vaccine shot. Only 324,955 have been fully vaccinated.