Vietnam receives 2 million US-donated vaccine doses in one week
The support has ranked Vietnam one of the largest recipients of US vaccine donation in Asia.
Vietnam received two million doses of Pfizer vaccine from the US within a week (October 7-13), lifting the total US-donated volume to 9.5 million through eight deliveries via the global vaccine sharing COVAX Facility and direct shipment.
| The Chargé d'Affaires, a.i. of US Embassy Hanoi, Christopher Klein talks with Dr. Dang Duc Anh, Director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) on Oct 12. Photo: US Embassy in Hanoi |
The latest batch of 400,000 doses arrived today [October 13].
In the past week, the deliveries of the doses directly from the Pfizer manufacturing plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan included 1.2 million doses that arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on October 7 and October 8 and more than 789,000 doses reached Hanoi on October 8 and October 13.
This follows four previous COVAX deliveries totaling 7.5 million vaccine doses made available by the US to Vietnam.
More doses are planned for Vietnam, according to the US Embassy in Hanoi.
On Oct 12, the Embassy handed over 77 ultra-low temperature freezers to Vietnam, the first of 111 storage units worth US$1 million that the US Department of Defense offered to the Southeast Asian country.
The freezers will be used to store Covid-19 vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna, the two kinds donated by Washington. So far, Vietnam received 5 million doses of Moderna and 4.5 million of Pfizer vaccines.
These freezers can reach -40C to –90C, suitable for storing vaccines that require extremely cold temperatures, such as the nearly 3.1 million doses of vaccine that arrived from the US since Oct 2.
The US has invested an amount worth US$1 billion in Vietnamese health infrastructure to strengthen Vietnam’s capacity to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, Washington has committed more than $26.7 million in Covid-19 related assistance to Vietnam since the start of the pandemic.
APPRECIATION LETTER Vietnam’s President Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Oct 12 sent a letter to US President Joe Biden expressing his thanks to the US Government for the donations of vaccines, drugs, and medical supplies for Vietnam in the pandemic fight. Phuc also appreciated the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to share with the world Covid relief over the past time. At the Global Covid-19 Summit on September 22, Biden announced a commitment to share with the world an additional 500 million Pfizer doses, bringing the U.S. total commitment to more than 1.1 billion doses. Worldwide, the US has provided more than 175 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to more than 100 countries. “We will continue to donate additional vaccine doses globally as supply becomes available. We are also working with US vaccine manufacturers to increase vaccine supply for the rest of the world and with partners to expand global vaccine production and manufacturing capacity to beat this pandemic,” said the White House. Pfizer pledged to supply Vietnam with 31 million doses in 2021 and another 20 million doses for children aged between 12 and 18 during the visit paid to the pharmaceutical manufacturer’s headquarters in New York on Sept 23 by Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc. |
