A vial of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. — VNA/VNS Photo Thành Đạt

HÀ NỘI — A total of 1,319,600 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines supplied through COVAX’s Advance Purchase Agreement with the manufacturer arrived in Hà Nội on Tuesday, announced UNICEF Việt Nam.

This brings the total donation from COVAX to Việt Nam to 27,099,730 doses, or over 70 per cent of the initiative’s pledge to deliver 38.9 million shots free-of-charge for Việt Nam in 2021.

The shipment comes after the US provided another 2,873,520 million doses of Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines, also via COVAX, to Việt Nam over the past few days.

1,316,250 doses arrived on November 6 in Hà Nội, and 1,557,270 doses arrived in two shipments on November 7 and 8 in HCM City, according to a statement from the US Embassy in Việt Nam.

This is the seventh delivery to Việt Nam, totalling more than 15 million COVID-19 vaccine doses made available by the United States.

“The United States has committed more than $30.2 million in COVID-19 related assistance for Việt Nam since the beginning of the pandemic. Building on our long-standing cooperation and investment in Việt Nam’s health infrastructure, we have provided support to essentially every pillar of the country’s pandemic response,” the statement reads.

“We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Việt Nam in the fight against COVID-19,” it adds.

“We extend our sincerest thanks to all COVAX donors and partners for making sure we have more vaccines available for the Vietnamese population to protect them from COVID-19,” says Kidong Park, WHO Representative in Việt Nam.

The COVAX Facility is co-led by WHO, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI), GAVI - the Vaccine Alliance, and UNICEF as a delivery partner.

Earlier during the meeting with Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính in France, COVAX Managing Director Aurelia Nguyen has said COVAX has decided to allocate 9 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to Việt Nam, on top of the previous commitments, and will deliver them to Việt Nam as soon as possible. 

The health ministry said it had so far distributed some 109 million doses of vaccines, and as of Tuesday afternoon, 92 million shots have been administered. Over 83 per cent of the adult population have received at least one dose of vaccine, with about 40.6 per cent having received two doses. — VNS