The Polish government will transfer COVID-19 vaccines to Vietnam on a not-for-profit basis, according to Minister Michał Dworczyk, head of the Polish Prime Minister’s Office.

The Polish-Vietnamese Parliamentary Group and the Poland-Vietnam Friendship Association, with the support of Polish Ambassador to Vietnam Wojciech Gerwel and Vietnamese Ambassador to Poland Nguyen Hung, have raised the idea of delivering a part of Poland’s leftover COVID-19 vaccine source to Vietnam, which needs to have enough vaccines for its national immunization campaign, the Vietnam News Agency reported on Tuesday.

This can be seen as a form of transfer of COVID-19 vaccine at its original price.

Under the transfer, the Embassy of Poland in Vietnam will receive about 1,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, to be administered to its staff and Polish citizens in Vietnam.

The vaccine issue will be among the topics of a phone talk slated for next Monday between Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki, said Ambassador Hung.

At a recent meeting between Minister Dworczyk, Ambassador Hung, and representatives of the Polish-Vietnamese Parliamentarian Group and the Poland-Vietnam Friendship Association, many participants expressed their gratitude to the Polish government for its support and prompt realization of the vaccine initiative.

They hoped that the Polish government will further assist Vietnam in the COVID-19 fight and more agreements will be inked to send additional batches of vaccine doses from Poland to the Southeast Asian country.

Trybuna, a Polish left-wing newspaper, on Tuesday reported that Poland is expected to deliver six million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Vietnam on a not-for-profit basis.

Vietnam well controlled the COVID-19 outbreaks in 2020, but the country is now suffering from the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, the newspaper commented.

Vietnam, which has had a friendly cooperative relationship with Poland for more than 70 years, is now a strategic partner of the European country in Southeast Asia and in the ASEAN Community.

Currently, tens of thousands of Vietnamese citizens are living in Poland while Vietnam is home to hundreds of Poles.

Vietnam is accelerating its coronavirus vaccination campaign nationwide, with the number of people receiving the first and second doses topping 14.6 million and 1.4 million, respectively, the Ministry of Health reported.

The country needs to have 150 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to inoculate two-thirds of its 98 million population to reach herd immunity, but it has so far got over 20.5 million doses from different sources, including COVAX Facility, contractual purchases, and donations, local sources said. 

Vietnamese State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc on July 29 asked health authorities to promptly authorize Nano Covax, a vaccine being developed domestically, to make the first made-in-Vietnam jab available soon to drive back the pandemic. 

Since the pandemic hit Vietnam in nearly 2020, the country has documented 283,696 COVID-19 cases, ranking 77th among 222 countries and territories, the health ministry said.

Among the total number of patients, 106,977 have recovered while 6,141 died.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!