HANOI / MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vietnam plans to obtain 150 million doses for its COVID-19 vaccination program, as the Ministry of Health says a medical panel has recommended that it approve the Russian Sputnik V vaccine and the Modern vaccine for use in the country in Southeast Asia.
According to the ruling posted on the government’s website, the 150 million doses will include both the doses purchased directly and the doses shared by the COVAX vaccine section.
On Wednesday, Vietnam received its first batch of 117,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine ahead of the planned launch of its vaccination program from next month.
The Russian Interfax news agency reported on Friday that the Sputnik V vaccine had been approved, although the Ministry of Health in Vietnam said a medical panel had recommended it and the US Moderna Inc. vaccine for use.
Approval by the Ministry of Health is required for the purchase and use of vaccines in the country. Vietnam approved the AstraZeneca vaccine late last month.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Thi Thu Hang said the Ministry of Health and Enterprise was in talks to buy more vaccines, including Sputnik V and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
“Vietnam wants access to sources of quality COVID-19 vaccines at reasonable prices and suitable for Vietnam’s storage conditions,” Hang told a news conference on Thursday.
The government ruling said frontline workers, security forces, diplomats, teachers and people aged 65 or older would be among the first to be vaccinated.
Vietnam has been praised worldwide for its record that it contained the virus for long periods of time through mass testing and detection and strict quarantine, although the recent wave of infections has been confronted.
The country has recorded 827 new COVID-19 cases since the last outbreak began last month, or about a third of the total number of 2,421 infections. Only 35 deaths due to the virus have been reported.
(Reported by Khanh Vu and Phuong Nguyen in Hanoi and Anton Kolodyazhnyy in Moscow; edited by Jacqueline Wong and Ed Davies)