HANOI / MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vietnam plans to purchase 150 million doses for its COVID-19 vaccination program, as the health ministry said a medical panel recommended the approval of Russian Sputnik V and Moderna vaccines for use in the country. Southeast Asia.
The 150 million doses will include both those acquired directly and those obtained through the COVAX vaccine sharing scheme, according to a decision published on the government’s website.
On Wednesday, Vietnam received its first batch of 117,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine before the planned launch of its inoculation program starting next month.
Russian news agency Interfax reported on Friday that the Sputnik V vaccine was approved, although the Vietnamese health ministry said a medical panel recommended it and the US Moderna Inc vaccine for use.
Approval from the Ministry of Health is required for the purchase and use of vaccines in the country. Vietnam approved the AstraZeneca vaccine at the end of last month.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Thi Thu Hang said the health ministry and companies are in talks to buy more vaccines, including Sputnik V and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
“Vietnam wants to have access to quality COVID-19 vaccine sources at reasonable prices and suitable for Vietnam’s storage conditions,” Hang told a news conference on Thursday.
The government’s decision said that frontline workers, security forces, diplomats, teachers and people 65 and older will be among the first to be vaccinated free of charge.
Vietnam was globally praised for its record of containing the virus for long periods last year, through tests and mass screening and strict quarantine, although it has faced a recent wave of infections.
The country has registered 827 new cases of COVID-19 since the last outbreak began last month, or about a third of its overall load of 2,421 infections. He reported only 35 deaths due to the virus.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu and Phuong Nguyen in Hanoi and Anton Kolodyazhnyy in Moscow; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Ed Davies)