Vietnam will try to arrange Covid-19 vaccines from different sources as the Covid-19 pandemic is becoming more complicated in the country.
Deputy Minister Health Tran Van Thuan said during the press conference on May 5 that Vietnam would try to import Covid-19 vaccines from Russia, Japan, and the UK via international programmes, embassies and organisations. They will also start the process to receive the newest Covid-19 vaccine production technologies.
Deputy Minister Health Tran Van Thuan speaks at the conference
"Vietnam will have 38.9 million doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine via the COVAX Facility, and 30 million more doses via Vietnam Vaccine JSC. We are negotiating with Pfizer for 31 million doses and 2 million doses of Sputnik V vaccine from Russia," he said.
Thuan will visit Japan and another Deputy Minister of Health, Tran Quoc Cuong, will visit Russia for technology transferring and negotiation over Covid-19 vaccines.
In early May, the World Health Organisation said that the Future mRNA vaccine technology will be transferred to Vietnam. More details will be discussed in May.
In regards to domestically-made vaccines, two manufacturers will complete vaccines in mid and late 2021 with governmental support. If the Covid-19 outbreak becomes too severe, the vaccines will be issued licenses for emergency cases.
During a regular meeting in April, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh urged the Ministry of Health to be proactive in searching for more sources to secure Covid-19 vaccines for Vietnam and speeding up the immunisation programmes so that the vaccines will not be expired.
The ministry was also asked to build a plan about import, produce and roll out the vaccines to the government in May.
