Over one million AstraZeneca vaccine doses arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday, including those donated by the Japanese government, amid the country’s acceleration of its vaccination campaign to curb the increasing COVID-19 spread.

A shipment of 600,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses from Japan was delivered to Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City early on Friday morning.

The latest delivery has taken the total volume of COVID-19 vaccines provided for free by Japan to Vietnam to nearly two million doses so far.

The two previous shipments included 400,000 doses arriving in Ho Chi Minh City on July 2 and nearly one million shots reaching Hanoi on June 16.

Also on Thursday morning, 580,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses were sent to Tan Son Nhat, as the third delivery by AstraZeneca under a 30-million-dose contract between the firm and Vietnam Vaccine Joint Stock Company.

The combined volume of the two previous deliveries, in February and May, was over 405,000 doses.  

Among other vaccine suppliers to Vietnam, China donated 500,000 Sinopharm vaccine jabs on June 20.

Vietnam also expects to take two million Moderna vaccine doses from the U.S. this weekend, as part of the U.S. government’s program to gift COVID-19 vaccines to 92 countries.

The U.S. is operating the program through COVAX, a global initiative aiming to accelerate the COVID-19 vaccine manufacture and guarantee equitable access for every country in the world.

The initiative, to which Vietnam has recently made a contribution of US$500,000, has promised to supply Vietnam with around 31 million vaccine doses, which is enough for vaccinating 20 percent of the country’s population.

On Wednesday, Vietnam received more than 97,000 Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine shots from COVAX as the first delivery under the commitment.

The Southeast Asian country is accelerating its immunization campaign to drive back the coronavirus spread that has so far infected more than 25,000 people.

As of Thursday, around 3.9 million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine had been administered to people nationwide, including frontline health workers and priority groups, the Ministry of Health reported.

At noon on Friday, the ministry confirmed 609 new COVID-19 cases, including 100 domestic and nine imported infections, of which 479 were detected in Ho Chi Minh City.

The latest infections have taken the country’s tally to 25,419 cases, including 8,950 recoveries and 105 deaths, since early 2020.

Since April 27, when the pandemic’s fourth wave erupted in Vietnam, the country has documented 21,943 infections.

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