Vietnam’s Health Ministry has registered to buy a Russian COVID-19 vaccine, state television reported on Friday, as the Southeast Asian country battles a new coronavirus outbreak after months without any local cases.
Russia said on Wednesday the first batch of the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine would be released within two weeks, dismissing “unfounded” protection considerations expressed by some experts over Moscow’s rapid approval of the drug.
“Meanwhile, Vietnam will continue to expand its COVID-19 vaccine,” state broadcaster Vietnam Television (VTV) said, mentioning the Vietnamese Ministry of Health.
The ministry did not specify how many doses of the Russian vaccine it had ordered or when it expected to get them. The vaccine produced in Viet Nam will be available until the end of 2021, the ministry announced last month.
Viet Nam has been praised for suppressing an earlier contagion through competitive testing, touch tracing and quarantine, but is now suffering infections in several places connected to the popular resort city of Danang, where a new outbreak was detected on July 25.
Vietnam has reported a total of 911 infections, with 21 deaths. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc warned that the threat of the spread of the virus is “very high” and stated that the coming days will be “critical” to combat the epidemic.
The head of Vietnam’s coronavirus task force, Vu Duc Dam, said on Friday that Vietnam still has no option to “live safely with the virus. “
“We are implementing the anti-virus measures of a poor country, so we all want to remain vigilant and know how to protect ourselves from the virus,” Dam said, according to state media.
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