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HANOI, June 20 (Reuters) - Vietnam has received a shipment
of 500,000 Sinopharm vaccine doses donated by China, the health
ministry said on Sunday, as the country is ramping up
inoculations to battle against a more widespread outbreak.
The Southeast Asian nation approved China's Sinopharm
vaccine for emergency use against COVID-19 in early June.
The vaccines will be used for three groups: Chinese citizens
in Vietnam, Vietnamese who have plan to work or study in China
and people who live near the borders with China, the health
ministry said in a statement.
Vietnam's domestic inoculation programme, which started in
March, has so far relied heavily on around 4 million shots of
AstraZeneca's vaccine.
Nearly 2.4 million people in Vietnam have had one dose of a
COVID-19 vaccine, while 115,315 have been fully vaccinated,
according to official data.
The country of 98 million also received a batch of nearly
one million AstraZenca doses of vaccine donated by the Japanese
government on June 16.
Vietnam is tackling a more stubborn wave of infections. The
country's business hub, Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday banned public
gatherings of more than three people and imposed lockdown orders
on some virus-prone areas.
Vietnam's latest outbreak, which includes the highly
transmissible Delta coronavirus variant, has accounted for about
75% of its overall cases during the pandemic, with 9,849
infections and 31 fatalities since late April.
(Reporting by Phuong Nguyen, editing by Louise Heavens)
