HCMC – The Cuban Defense Ministry will donate 150,000 doses of the Abdala Covid-19 vaccine to Vietnam’s Ministry of National Defense to support the country in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The information was announced by Minister of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces Alvaro Lopez Miera during a meeting with Vietnam’s Deputy Minister of National Defense Hoang Xuan Chien in Havana on September 20.
Chien thanked the Cuban Defense Ministry for the medicines and experts it sent to Vietnam to help with the Covid-19 fight. Vietnam will send Cuba 100 tons of corn seeds along with medical supplies and cash worth VND10 billion in total as support in the Covid-19 fight.
During the meeting, the two ministerial officers also agreed to foster cooperation in fighting Covid-19 and draw up a five-year plan for medical cooperation between the Cuban and Vietnamese militaries.
Besides, the two sides will further increase delegation exchanges, high-level dialogues and cooperation in the defense industry, personnel training, cyber security, military medicine and other sectors.
The Vietnamese Government earlier agreed to appoint contractors for the purchase of 10 million doses of the Cubann-made Covid-19 vaccine, Abdala.
Abdala is a protein subunit vaccine developed by the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology of Cuba.
In late June, the state-run biopharmaceutical corporation BioCubaFarma announced that the three-shot Abdala vaccine proved 92.28% effective against the coronavirus in the final stage of clinical trials.
Abdala is the eighth Covid-19 vaccine approved for emergency use in Vietnam, after AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Pfizer, Sputnik V, Sinopharm and Hayat-Vax.
