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PM orders urgent COVID-19 vaccine purchase

VGP – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh reiterated that COVID-19 vaccine purchase is an urgent task to protect the public’s health.

May 18, 2021 9:16 AM GMT+7

The Government chief stressed that this is an urgent situation, thus vaccine procurement must be handled in accordance with legal regulations on special and urgent circumstances and carried out immediately.

The above guidelines were released on late Monday following a meeting on COVID-19 response, during which the Ministry of Health reported on the purchase of Pfizer vaccine.

Viet Nam has received a total of 2,611,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses, including 2,493,600 doses shipped by the COVAX Facility.

As many as 977,032 front line workers have been vaccinated between March 8 and May 15, according to the Ministry of Health.

The Government planned to acquire 150 million vaccine doses to cover 70% of the country’s population.

Apart from external supplies, Viet Nam has four domestic COVID-19 vaccines under research and development by Nanogen Pharmaceutical Biotechnology JSC, the Institute of Vaccine and Medical Biologicals, the Vaccine and Biological Production Company No. 1 and the Center for Research and Production of Vaccines and Biologicals.

Two of the aforesaid vaccines are under the first and second phase of human trials. The first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine, called Nanocovax, is expected to be put into use in 2022./.

By Quang Minh