So said Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu in a press conference on September 6, during which he confirmed that access to vaccines is one of the key priorities of the Government for protecting people’s health and recovering economic development.
Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Minh Vu (Photo: baodautu.vn)
However, notifying that the world is facing serious shortages of vaccines, he clarified that the world needs some 11 billion doses to obtain herd immunity, while it is producing only some 4.5 billion.
According to the Deputy Minister, over the past time, the Working Group on Vaccine Diplomacy has mobilized all resources for vaccines, taking advantage of bilateral and multilateral relationships through international organizations, including the COVAX Facility, and promoting vaccine diplomacy through Vietnam's representative network abroad to gain the fastest and earliest access to not only vaccines, but also special drugs and medical equipment.
“The Working Group also promotes cooperation for domestic vaccine production, and gains quite positive results," he emphasized.
Regarding special drugs, the Deputy Minister said that the Ministry of Health and overseas representative agencies have encouraged the Governments of countries to successfully import millions of doses of specialty drugs from advanced countries such as Japan, India and Switzerland.
The Working Group has also promoted access to medical equipment from different sources. Up to now, 17 countries, territories, organizations and overseas Vietnamese have provided medical equipment worth millions of USD.
“We sincerely thank our partners, international organizations, the business community, investors, and expatriates for supporting the Government and people in the country in accessing vaccines, special medicines and medical equipment,” Mr. Vu added. “We hope to continue to receive more cooperation, support and help to have more vaccines and special drugs, thereby protecting public health.”
Earlier, at a Government meeting on the same day, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said that it is expected that by the end of 2021, Vietnam will have about 90 million doses of vaccine, excluding the COVAX Facility. The minister suggested that localities deploy the peak vaccination in the coming months, the injection schedule must reach 1 million injections a day to complete the plan.
According to Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung, the world will be capable of producing 1.5 billion doses of vaccine per month by the end of 2021 and 2.2 billion doses per month in 2022./.