Vietnam has approved a coronavirus vaccine produced by a Chinese company for emergency use, the third shot to have secured such authorization in the Southeast Asian country so far.

Deputy Minister of Health Truong Quoc Cuong signed a decision on Thursday to authorize the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine made by Beijing Bio-Institute of Biological Products Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of China National Biotec Group (CNBG). 

The vaccine was listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization (WHO) on May 7, according to a press release the WHO posted on its website the same day.

The WHO has greenlighted jabs produced by Oxford–AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinopharm-BBIBP, Moderna, Sinovac, and Johnson & Johnson.

An advistory board under Vietnam’s Ministry of Health said the Sinopharm jab has been given emergency use authorization in 41 countries.

The Sinopharm shot is the third to have been approved for emergency use in Vietnam, after AstraZeneca and Russia’s Sputnik V.

Vietnam has received almost 2.9 million doses of coronavirus vaccine as yet, mostly AstraZeneca shots, from the COVAX vaccine-sharing scheme and direct purchases.

Over one million have been administered to medical staff and other frontline workers since the country rolled out mass immunization on March 8.

The government set a target of taking delivery of 150 million vaccine shots to inoculate 75 percent of a population of nearly 98 million people

The Ministry of Health has confirmed 8,195 coronavirus patients, including 3,085 recoveries and 50 deaths, since the virus first hit Vietnam on January 23, 2020.

The nation has been battling a fourth wave since April 27, with 5,088 domestic infections having been reported in 37 out of 63 provinces and cities since.

It recorded 106 community cases in the first wave from January 23 to April 16, 2020, 554 in the second from July 25 to December 1, 2020, and 910 in the third from January 28 to March 25, 2021. 

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