The vaccines were brought to Vietnam by Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, on March 16, during his two-day business trip to Hanoi.

Dang Viet Hung, Head of the International Cooperation Department of the Health Ministry, said the Ministry of Health received this batch of vaccine at Hanoi-based Noi Bai international airport on March 16. The vaccines were immediately transported to cold storage at the Central Institute for Hygiene and Epidemiology for preservation.

The use of the 1,000 doses of Russian Covid-19 vaccine will be decided by the Government, which may be allocated to the Ministry of Health or other agencies.

These are the first doses of Covid-19 vaccine from Russia imported into Vietnam.

Deputy Health Minister Tran Van Thuan said that this year Vietnam will have 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, including 30 million doses from the global vaccine supply program COVAX and 30 million doses bought by Vietnam.

The Ministry of Health is also negotiating with pharmaceutical firms Pfizer, Moderna (USA), and Sputnik V (Russia) to buy more vaccines.

On February 25, the advisory council for the registration of drug circulation proposed that the Ministry of Health approve two additional Covid-19 vaccines - Moderna (USA) and Sputnik V of JSC Generium (Russia) for use in Vietnam, besides AstraZeneca.

Vietnam aims to have 150 million doses of vaccine this year before it can locally produce its own vaccine by the end of this year or early next year.

Sputnik V was the world's first approved Covid-19 vaccine. From August 11, 2020, the Russian Ministry of Health implemented a national vaccination campaign, using the Sputnik V vaccine when it had not completed the clinical trial of phase 3.

However, to date, the Sputnik V vaccine has been approved for use by more than 50 countries.

According to the results of the Phase 3 clinical trial published in The Lancet, Sputnik V is 91.6% effective. The rate is 91.8% for volunteers of over 60 years old. After vaccination, 98% of volunteers produced antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Thuy Hanh

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