The inter-ministerial working group consists of representatives of the Ministries of Health, Finance, Planning and Investment, and Foreign Affairs. It met on Wednesday to discuss the receipt of 30 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines that VNVC ordered from AstraZeneca.

This includes 117,600 doses that are being used on frontline health workers in 13 provinces and cities in Vietnam.

VNVC is one of three organizations that AstraZeneca has agreed to provide vaccines in Vietnam. The others are the COVAX Facility and UNICEF.

It is expected that about 60 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine will be imported into Vietnam in 2021 through VNVC and COVAX Facility.

COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, abbreviated as COVAX, is a global initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines led by UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and others.

For the vaccines supplied by VNVC, 117,600 doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine produced by SK Bio Korea arrived in Vietnam in late February 2021, and have been used since March 8.

It is expected that the next batches of vaccines with a total of 29.87 million doses will arrive in Vietnam in April (1.48 million doses), May (2.76 million doses), June (5.04 million doses), July (7.32 million doses) and August (13.27 million doses).

For vaccines provided by COVAX Facility, according to UNICEF's announcement, on March 25 the first batch of vaccines from this source will arrive in Vietnam. It will have 1.37 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine of the total committed 30 million doses.

The next batch with 2.8 million doses will arrive in Vietnam on April 25. Thus, by the end of April 2021, Vietnam will receive 4.17 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine from COVAX Facility.

The remaining 25.9 million doses of vaccine committed by COVAX Facility are expected to be shipped to Vietnam from August to November 2021.

The Ministry of Health said that it was negotiating with vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Gamaleya (Sputnik V) to buy more vaccines for Vietnamese.

The Ministry encourages all eligible enterprises to access and negotiate with partners around the world to import vaccines for domestic use in accordance with the Government's Resolution No. 21 on the purchase and use of vaccines.

Nguyen Lien

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