The European Union (EU) delegation to Vietnam tweeted on Tuesday that Italy decided to present an extra 1,225,440 COVID-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam, bringing its total aid to more than 2.8 million doses.

The Italian government donated 801,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Vietnam via the COVAX Facility on August 25 and another 796,000 shots of the same vaccine on September 21.

The EU is the second-largest donor of COVAX.

Its delegation to Vietnam said in Tuesday’s tweet that COVAX’s vaccine deliveries from the union to Vietnam topped nine million doses, including 670,080 doses from France and the aforementioned 2,833,500 shots from Italy.

Other EU member states have also granted Vietnam several direct bilateral donations to aid the Southeast Asian country’s fight against the pandemic.

The donations consist of 100,000 vaccine doses from Belgium, 250,000 doses from the Czech Republic, 3.45 million doses from Germany, 100,000 doses from Hungary, 501,600 doses from Poland, 300,000 doses from Romania, and 100,000 doses from Slovakia.

In addition, the Czech Republic transferred 500,000 excess doses for a fee to Vietnam while Poland resold three million doses at no profit to the nation.

Those EU countries also donated test kits, face masks, protective gear, medical equipment, ventilators, and specialized refrigerators to Vietnam.

The delegation affirmed that the EU continues to stand with Vietnam in the combat against COVID-19.

To date, Vietnam has received more than 54 million doses through the COVAX Facility, foreign government aid, and purchase contracts, of which over 40 million have been administered, with nearly 8.6 million fully vaccinated people, according to the Ministry of Health’s data.

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