Vietnam has negotiated to buy at least 120 million doses from pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Sputnik V, as well as from COVAX (the group initiative created to help low and middle income countries) this year. However, the specific quantity and delivery times may change.

On June 2, Vietnam negotiated with Russia to buy 20 million more doses of Sputnik V vaccine this year.

The largest number of Covid-19 vaccines for Vietnam this year will come from COVAX with 38.9 million doses. So far, two shipments of AstraZeneca vaccine, provided by the COVAX arrived in Vietnam on April 1 (811,200 doses) and May 16 (1,682,000 doses).

COVAX currently provides three types of vaccines: AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and Serum Institute of India (SII). It plans to distribute 2 billion doses of vaccines to 190 countries this year.

Vietnam will have an additional 30 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine ordered by the Ministry of Health through the Vietnam Vaccine Joint Stock Company - VNVC. The Ministry of Health has been negotiating with this pharmaceutical company on vaccine purchase since October 2020. So far, Vietnam has received two batches of vaccine under this agreement, including 117,600 doses on April 24 and 288,100 doses on May 25.

As many as 31 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have been ordered by Vietnam since October 2020 when the vaccine was still in the clinical trial stage. On May 20 the Vietnamese Ministry of Health signed a contract with this company.

Pfizer committed to supply Vietnam with 15.5 million doses in the third quarter and the rest will be delivered in the fourth quarter.

The Ministry of Health began negotiating to purchase Moderna vaccines in March 2021, but the company announced that there were no vaccines to be provided in 2021. In May, Moderna agreed to authorize the multinational pharmaceutical corporation Zuellig Pharma to distribute 5 million doses to Vietnam.

In 2021, Vietnam needs 150 million doses of vaccine to vaccinate 75 million people. The estimated required funding for the vaccine and vaccination campaign is more than VND25 trillion, including about VND21 trillion for vaccine purchase.

Thuy Hanh

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