A total of 659,000 COVID-19 vaccine were delivered to HCM City on Thursday morning, AstarZeneca has delivered nearly 3.8 million doses out of 30 million doses ordered by Việt Nam Vaccine Joint Stock Company with support from the Ministry of Health. — AFP/VNA Photo

HÀ NỘI — AstraZeneca has delivered an additional 659,900 COVID-19 vaccines doses to HCM City.

This is the sixth shipment of a deal for 30 million doses signed between AstraZeneca Vietnam and the Việt Nam Vaccine Joint Stock Company (VNVC) with support from the Ministry of Health.

After the first shipment in February, nearly 3.8 million doses have been delivered.

This accounts for 41 per cent of the  AstraZeneca vaccine volume Việt Nam has received, with the remainder coming from the COVAX Facility or donated by other countries.

Nguyễn Nam Liên, Head of the Planning and Finance Department under the Health Ministry said that during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Việt Nam, vaccines played an important role in prevention and control of the spread of the virus. 

Việt Nam was thankful and appreciated the efforts of AstraZeneca, VNVC and other parties to increase the speed of vaccine supply to Việt Nam, he said.

This month, four shipments of AstraZeneca vaccines were received by Việt Nam. 

The fifth shipment on July 23 was the largest with 1,228,500 doses.

AstraZeneca was the first vaccine to receive authorisation for emergency use in Việt Nam.

Việt Nam has so far received about 15 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines with 10,994,600 from donations and nearly 3.8 million doses from purchase orders.

Of the donated vaccines, 2.5 million doses of AstraZeneca were from the COVAX Facility, 5 million were Moderna vaccines from US, 500,000 were Sinopharm from China, 2,000 were Sputnik-V from Russia, and  3 million AstraZeneca doses came from Japan.

5,321,839 doses have been administered in Việt Nam to date, with 496,630 people having received the full two doses. — VNS