The committee consisting of ministries of Health, Finance, Planning and Investment, Foreign Affairs, and Public Security previously had a working session on receiving 30 million AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses bought by VNVC, including the first batch of 117,600 doses of vaccine that arrived in Vietnam on February 24 and have been allocated to 13 provinces and cities.
The ministries came to an agreement on receiving the 30 million vaccine doses on a non-profit basis. The transfer price will be equivalent to the purchase price that VNVC paid the UK-Swedish drug firm AstraZeneca, with all associated costs likely taxes, insurance and transportation, storage. All extra fees incurred prior to the transfer would be paid by VNVC.
VNVC negotiated with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to sign a contract for 30 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine. The Vietnam Vaccine JSC (VNVC) cooperated with the National Expanded Immunization Program to quickly distribute the first batch of 117,600 doses to 13 provinces and cities in response to the plan on the reception, preservation, distribution and use of Covid-19 vaccines during the 2021-2022 period that has been launched by the Ministry of Health.
As of present, Vietnam has become the second country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine.
According to the Ministry of Health, the UNICEF announced that the first batch of 1.37 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to arrive on March 25 as part of the COVAX Facility’s commitment to supply 30 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Vietnam this year. The second shipment of 2.8 million doses will arrive on April 25. The remaining 25.9 million doses will be transported to the country from August to November.
The Ministry of Health is negotiating with other Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers such as Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Gamaleya (Russia’s Sputnik V) to approach various vaccine manufacturers and expand coronavirus vaccine supply, aiming to expedite the vaccination campaign at the soonest.
