Doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are seen at the Biblioteka kod Milutina restaurant in Kragujevac, Serbia, May 4, 2021. (File Photo by=REUTERS/Marko Djurica) |
[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] HANOI: While Vietnam sped up inoculations to battle against a more widespread outbreak, the country has received a shipment of 500,000 Sinopharm vaccine doses donated by China, the health ministry said on Sunday (Jun 20), according to a Reuters report.
Vietnam approved China's Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use against COVID-19 in early June. The vaccines will be used for three groups: Chinese citizens in Vietnam, Vietnamese who have plans to work or study in China, and people who live near the borders with China, the health ministry said in a statement. Nearly 2.4 million people in Vietnam have had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 115,315 have been fully vaccinated, according to official data.
Meanwhile, Vietnam's domestic inoculation program, which started in March, has so far relied heavily on around 4 million shots of AstraZeneca's vaccine. The country of 98 million also received a batch of nearly one million AstraZeneca doses of vaccine donated by the Japanese government on Jun 16. Vietnam's latest outbreak, which includes the highly transmissible Delta coronavirus variant, has accounted for about 75 percent of its overall cases during the pandemic, with 9,849 infections and 31 fatalities since late April.