Vietnam made technological strides to fight against COVID-19 pandemic

The first Vietnam-made Covid-19 vaccine will be tested on eligible volunteers on December 17, Hanoitimes reported.

About 150 students from medical and pharmaceutical universities in Hanoi have volunteered to join in a trial for Vietnam-made vaccine of Covid-19.

This is one of successful achievements of Vietnamese scientists after the Ministry of Science and Technology mobilized the country’s leading experts, scientists, and enterprises to carry out urgent technological tasks to respond to the pandemic.

Vietnamese-made SARS-CoV-2 test kits, manufactured by Military Medical Academy and Viet A Corporation. Photo Vietnam News Agency/Duong Giang

In May, they sucessfully manufactured Vietnamese-made SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic test kits, cultivate and successfully isolated the virus, collect and synthesize latest international studies on the coronavirus to supply as references to researchers, and provide support for orders for immediate tasks in the prevention and control of COVID-19.

The kit, comprising 50 separate tests that can theoretically be used to for SARS-CoV-2 on 50 people, meets all the criteria on virus sensitivity, specificity and accuracy set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Scientists and enterprises have made robotic creations, notably VIBOT-1a which provides medical support, and successfully trialed NaRoVid11a robot model.
Medical supplies and equipment – 102,300 nano masks, 22,525 N95-grade masks, and 960 personal protective gears for medical staff of Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi – were scanned and sanitized for free, Duong said.
In addition, the Ministry of Science and Technology has coordinated with other agencies and ministries to promote the use of the digitalized Vietnamese knowledge system in building epidemiological map into the Vmap application, provided free of charge all documents related to national standards as well as updated information on international standards on anti-epidemic equipment and tools.
The ministry has also worked with enterprises to help trial and evaluate the technical requirements for medical devices, extended deadlines for various fees and charges collection as well as submission of administrative documents for enterprises.
The Ministry of Science and Technology has worked with the Ministry of Finance to cut back on half of the fee for the registration of the use of foreign barcodes and the amount of industrial property-related fees and charges.
The ministry has ordered and instructed provincial and municipal science and technology departments to implement urgent solutions to improve science and technology capacity to help remove difficulties and barriers and facilitate the innovation and science and technology of enterprises, ensuring socio-economic growth and people’s livelihoods even in the face of the pandemic.