Hayat-Vax is the same Sinopharm CNBG’s BiBP inactivated vaccine that was officially registered by the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention on December 9, 2020 and subsequently by the Chinese Center for Drug Evaluation on December 30, 2020. — Photo courtesy of G42 Healthcare/Julphar

HÀ NỘI — The Vietnamese health ministry on Friday gave conditional approval for use in emergencies for Made-in-UAE COVID-19 vaccine Hayat-Vax, the seventh to obtain such authorisation.

The Hayat Vax (Hayat means “life” in Arabic) is the same as Sinopharm SARS-CoV-2 vaccine Vero Cell Inactivated, which was given emergency use approval in Việt Nam earlier in June.

According to the document signed by Deputy Health Minister Trương Quốc Cường, the vaccine is produced by Beijing Bio-Institute of Biological Products Co. Ltd., subsidiary of China National Biotec Group, similar to Sinopharm vaccines.

The products however are packaged by Julphar Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries in the UAE under an agreement between Abu Dhabi's G42 and Sinopharm.

Vimedimex Medi-Pharma Joint Stock Company will submit the documents to health authorities for approval to handle the purchase and import of the vaccine into Việt Nam.

The final vaccine product in each 0.5 ml dose is composed of 6.5U (4μg) of inactivated SARS-CoV-2 antigens and aluminium hydroxide adjuvant in phosphate-buffered saline.

Each vial contains a single dose for intramuscular administration.

Other vaccines approved for use in Việt Nam are AstraZeneca/Oxford, Sputnik V, Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), Spikevax (Moderna), Comirnaty (Pfizer/BioNTech) and Vero Cell (CNBG/Sinopharm).

The majority of the doses used in Việt Nam to date have been AstraZeneca.

As of Friday morning, the country has administered over 26 million COVID-19 vaccine shots, out of the 33 million doses it has received so far.

HCM City, with 7.2 million jabs administered, leads the country in terms of vaccine coverage, followed by Hà Nội with over 4 million doses.

Southern COVID-19 hot spots like Bình Dương, Long An, and Đồng Nai reported 1.5 million, 1.46 million and 1.3 million shots administered so far, respectively — VNS