A total of 1,228,500 shots of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, part of a 30-million-dose contract, arrived in Vietnam on Friday morning.

The vaccine batch landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, according to Vietnam Vaccine JSC (VNVC).

This is part of the 30 million jabs that VNVC has purchased from AstraZeneca with the support from the Ministry of Health.

AstraZeneca has so far sent more than 3.1 million doses out of the 30 million shots to the Southeast Asian country in five shipments.

The previous four batches arrived on February 24, May 25, July 9, and July 15.

According to Nitin Kapoor, chairman and general director of AstraZeneca Vietnam, nearly 8.6 million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine have been delivered to Vietnam through purchase, the COVAX mechanism, and support from other countries.

The Southeast Asian country has also received 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine donated by China, two million doses of Moderna provided by the U.S. via the COVAX scheme, 1,000 shots of Sputnik V gifted by Russia, and nearly 200,000 doses of Pfizer through purchase.

The Ministry of Health has approved six COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use, including AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Russia’s Sputnik V, China’s Sinopharm, and Johnson & Johnson's Janssen.

A total of 4,411,659 doses have been administered since inoculation was rolled out on March 8, with 334,560 people having completed the two-dose regimen.

Vietnam had documented 78,269 COVID-19 cases as of Friday afternoon, with 13,421 recoveries and 370 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

The country has recorded 74,570 local infections in 62 provinces and cities since the fourth transmission wave began on April 27.

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