Vietnam expects to receive 3.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, including one million AstraZeneca jabs and 2.6 million Pfizer shots, in August and September, according to the contracts between the Ministry of Health and suppliers.
More stories at Vietnam Insider’s homepage.
The shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine doses, a portion of the 30 million doses purchased by Vietnam Vaccine JSC (VNVC) with support from the Ministry of Health, is expected to arrive before August 15.
As of August 6, AstraZeneca had delivered nearly 4.4 million out of the 30 million doses split between seven shipments to the Southeast Asian country.
No specific schedule has been announced for the arrival of the remaining doses from the AstraZeneca purchase.
Meanwhile, 2.6 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine are slated to be delivered in August and September.
The Ministry of Health has signed contracts with Pfizer to purchase about 50 million shots.
Pfizer previously sent 400,000 doses in July.
The remaining doses are expected to arrive in the fourth quarter of this year.
Vietnam has also purchased 20 million doses of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, but their arrival dates have yet to be announced.
Among the 38.9 million jabs that the COVAX Facility pledged to send to Vietnam, more than 9.1 million shots have already arrived in the country, while the rest will be gradually delivered in the near future.
The Vietnamese government expects to obtain 175 million jabs of various COVID-19 vaccines by early 2022 as part of its push to immunize two-thirds of its population of 98 million by the first quarter of next year.
The country has so far received about 18 million doses through purchase, the COVAX Facility, and donations from other countries.
More than 12 million shots have been administered since Vietnam rolled out inoculations on March 8, with over one million people having completed the two-dose regimen.
Source: Tuoitre
