By Sunday, more than 17 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Việt Nam. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Sang

HÀ NỘI —  A record number of COVID-related deaths were recorded over the weekend, 737 in total, with 599 in HCM City.

The total number of people who have died of COVID-19 complications now stands at 8,277, accounting for 2.4 per cent of the total infections in the country – the same as the world average rate.

Bình Dương, Đồng Nai, Tiền Giang and Đồng Tháp all reported a two-digit number of deaths  - 62, 25, 22 and 11 respectively.

Other fatalities were reported in Cần Thơ (4), Long An (4), Hà Nội (2), Bến Tre (2), Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu (1), Hà Tĩnh (1), Kiên Giang (1), Sóc Trăng (1), Thừa Thiên Huế (1) and Vĩnh Long (1).

The Ministry of Health on Sunday reported 11,214 new COVID-19 infections, including six imported cases.

This was the fourth day running with a daily increase surpassing 10,000.

Of new 11,208 locally-transmitted cases, 4,193 cases were in HCM City, 3,795 cases in Bình Dương, 849 in Đồng Nai, 709 in Tiền Giang, 365 in Long An, 183 in Đà Nẵng, 160 in Khánh Hòa, 142 in Đồng Tháp and 107 in Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu.

Other infections were reported in Cần Thơ (97), Tây Ninh (83), An Giang (69), Nghệ An (68), Vĩnh Long (49), Bình Thuận (47), Đắk Nông (39), Trà Vinh (39), Phú Yên (38), Bình Định (20), Hà Tĩnh (20), Quảng Nam (16), Kiên Giang (15), Sơn La (15), Đắk Lắk (12), Bắc Ninh (11), Hà Nội (11), Gia Lai (10), Cà Mau (10), Hậu Giang (7), Lào Cai (6), Bắc Giang (6), Ninh Thuận (5), Lạng Sơn (5), Quảng Ngãi (3), Quảng Trị (3) and Thái Bình (1).

A total of 6,387 cases were detected in communities outside of lockdown areas or concentrated quarantine areas.

Also on August 22, Sóc Trăng Centre for Disease Control registered an additional 138 cases which were detected on previous days and added to the Ministry of Health’s data system.

Việt Nam has so far documented 348,059 COVID-19 cases, with 147,667 people recovered. This, after a further 7,580 patients were given all-clear on Sunday.

The five localities with highest infections are HCM City (175,994), Bình Dương (70,242), Long An (17,805), Đồng Nai (17,688) and Tiền Giang (7.284).

Among patients under treatment, 687 are being cared for in ICU and 24 are using machines to help them breath.

A total of 17,065,896 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered so far, with 15,274,648 people receiving the first shot and 1,791,248 receiving two.

Meanwhile, the Vietnam Vaccine JSC (VNVC) handed over 1.2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccinations to the Health Ministry in Ho Chi Minh City on August 22.

It was the ninth batch of VNVC’s order of 30 million doses placed in November 2020.

Since July 9, over 6.2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine have been sent to Vietnam via the VNVC, bringing the total to about more than 7 million doses.

The VNVC pledged to cover all costs estimated at hundreds of billions of đồng, during vaccine purchase, transportation, storage and hand-over procedures. — VNS