Germany and Russia pledge 22.5 million vaccine doses for Vietnam

Germany and Russia pledged further COVID-19 vaccine support for Vietnam

The German government has just promised to support Vietnam with 2.5 million doses of the Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine, as informed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday.

Germany also announced providing 75 ventilators, 15 medical monitors, and 20,000 oxygen meters earlier to Vietnam on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the two sides' strategic partnership (October 2011-2021).

Amid the complicated developments of the pandemic, the Vietnamese government is approaching multiple sources of vaccines to ensure fast and effective vaccination.

To date, Germany has been the biggest vaccine donor among EU members for Vietnam. This was the result of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s letter and talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as the endeavour of the government’s working group on vaccine diplomacy, ministries, and Vietnamese representative agencies in Germany.

Earlier, European nations including the UK, Poland, and the Czech Republic supplied COVID-19 vaccines to Vietnam.

Also on Saturday, at the International Army Games 2021, Russian Deputy Minister of Defense Alexey Yurievich Krivoruchko announced at a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart Phan Van Giang that his country would donate an additional 20 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam within this year.

Last March, Russia gifted Vietnam 1,000 Sputnik V vaccine doses.

Minister Phan Van Giang thanked Russia for its vaccine donations and expressed hope that it would continue as the COVID-19 pandemic remains a complication in the country. He highlighted Russia as a top priority in Vietnam's foreign policy to develop a comprehensive strategic partnership.

One day earlier, the Japanese government also decided to provide additional COVID-19 vaccines to Vietnam as a result of the constant efforts of the government's vaccine diplomacy working group. The vaccines are expected to arrive in Vietnam on September 9. Japan has to date offered about 3 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Vietnam.

So far, Vietnam has received over 29 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, including around 19.1 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses. The country has administered at least the first shots to more than 20 million people, including around three million people receiving both shots. Vietnam will need to secure around 150 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to cover 70 per cent of its 96 million population by next year.