Viet Nam approves emergency use of Cuba-made Abdala vaccine

The Ministry of Health approves the emergency use of Cuba’s Abdala COVID-19 vaccine in Viet Nam.

The vaccine is developed by the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) and has an efficacy rate of 92.28 percent in three doses administered at 14-day intervals.

Last month, the Cuban Center for State Control of Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices granted emergency use authorization to Abdala in Cuba.

Abdala becomes the eighth foreign COVID-19 vaccine approved for emergency use in Viet Nam aside from the U.K.’s AstraZeneca, the U.S.’s Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, Russia’s Sputnik V, China’s Sinopharm and the UAE’s Hayat-Vax.

The Southeast Asian nation has received around 36 million COVID-19 vaccine doses through contracts, Government aid and COVAX facility. As of September 17, more than 33 million doses were administered, with 6,184,726 having been fully vaccinated./.

By Thuy Dung