HCMC – Two million doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine, donated by the United States through the Covax Facility, arrived at the Hanoi-based Noi Bai International Airport this morning, July 10.
The batch is part of the 80 million doses that U.S. President Joe Biden had earlier committed to providing to the world, and they are the first doses sent to Southeast Asia, the local media reported.
According to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the handover of the vaccine was part of its firm commitment to coordinate with partner countries in Southeast Asia to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic.
It stressed that it was proud to support Vietnam in the fight against the pandemic and believed that countries would jointly combat Covid-19.
Speaking at a ceremony to receive the vaccine, Christopher Klein, Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. of the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam, said “the shipment gives us hope that there is an end in sight to our fight against Covid-19. It gives us hope that we will be able to return to our normal lives.”
According to UNICEF Vietnam, Vietnam has successfully managed the response to the Covid-19 pandemic since 2020. However, due to supply constraints globally, vaccination rates are still low, with some 4% of the population vaccinated to date while the number of infections has been rising sharply in the last few weeks.
The U.S Government, through USAID, contributed US$2 billion to the Covax Facility. Covax has also committed to providing Vietnam with 4.1 million Covid-19 vaccine doses.
Vietnam has received four kinds of Covid-19 vaccines, including nearly 4.4 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses though the Covax Facility and an order by Vietnam Vaccine JSC, 1.4 million doses donated by Japan, 2,000 Sputnik V doses presented by Russia, 500,000 Vero-Cell doses provided by China and nearly 100,000 Pfizer-BioNTech doses.
Early last month, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said that Vietnam had contributed US$500,000 to Covax, demonstrating its high evaluation of the initiative.
