PM appreciates foreign assistance to COVID-19 fight
VOV.VN - Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh appreciated foreign partners lending a helping hand to the fight against COVID-19 in Vietnam at a meeting in Hanoi on March 14.
He reviewed major achievements of Vietnam’s vaccine strategy that focuses on vaccine diplomacy alongside the country’s largest vaccination campaign.
Thanks to the deployment of the strategy, he said the country has received a diverse supply of vaccines such as Pfizer, Janssen, and Moderna of the United States, AstraZeneca of the United Kingdom, VeroCell, Sinovax of China, Sputnik V of Russia, Abdala of Cuba, and Covaxin of India.
Nearly 40% of the total vaccines Vietnam has received are sourced from COVAX and more than 30 countries that have supplied vaccines to Vietnam through COVAX and bilateral channels.
From a country with a very low vaccination rate, Vietnam has emerged as one of the countries with the highest vaccination coverage in the world that helped the country gradually open up the economy, said the PM.
He partly attributed the encouraging results to wholehearted support and valuable assistance from international friends, and expected Vietnam would continue to receive international support in providing vaccines, especially vaccines against new strains and vaccines for children from 5 to under 12 years old.
He also suggested international friends share experiences on vaccination for children, support the country in opening schools safely and improve its health capacity at the grassroots level.
The PM announced the government’s decision to make additional financial contributions to COVAX.
In a pre-recorded message to the meeting, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization noted Vietnam is also one of the successful countries in COVID-19 prevention and control. He said vaccination is still an important measure against COVID-19 and Vietnam has done a good job of it.
Vietnam has set an exemplary model globally in implementing its vaccine strategy and vaccination campaign, he said.
Addressing the event, Rana Flowers, Acting UN Resident Coordinator and Chief Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Vietnam, assured that UNICEF and other UN organizations would continue to support Vietnam in COVID-19 prevention and control, especially in vaccine supply and domestic vaccine production in order to protect Vietnamese people, including women and children, from pandemic risks.
