The United States will provide nearly US$9.5 million in total assistance for Vietnam’s response to COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, the U.S. Department of State said in a statement on Friday.

The assistance includes $5 million in Economic Support Funds, which will be utilized to bring much needed resources to bear immediately, including supporting private sector recovery by mitigating the financial impacts of the pandemic on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), addressing the non-financial impacts facing SMEs, and partnering with the Vietnamese government stakeholders to bolster the government’s relief interventions.

It also includes $4.5 million in health assistance that was previously announced to help the Vietnamese government prepare laboratory systems, activate case-finding and event-based surveillance, support technical experts for preparedness and response, community education and engagement, infection prevention for healthcare settings, public health screening at points of entry, and more.

Over the past 20 years, the United States has invested more than $1.8 billion in total assistance for Vietnam, including more than $706 million for health, the State Department said in the statement

“Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the U.S. government has committed more than $775 million in emergency health, humanitarian, economic and development assistance specifically aimed at helping governments, international organizations, and NGOs fight the pandemic,” it said.

This funding, provided by the U.S. Congress, will save lives by improving public health education, protecting healthcare facilities, and increasing laboratory, disease-surveillance, and rapid-response capacity in more than 120 countries, the agency said.

This new assistance is in addition to the more than $100 billion in global health funding and nearly $70 billion in overseas humanitarian assistance provided by the United States in the last decade.

Together, Americans have committed an estimated nearly $6.5 billion in government and non-government donations and assistance in the global COVID-19 response.

In March, the United States said it had earmarked $274 million in financial assistance to 64 countries, including nearly $3 million to Vietnam, to help them combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

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