A shipment of one million doses of UAE-produced Hayat-Vax COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in Vietnam, bringing the Southeast Asian country's total number of jabs to nearly 57 million.

Delivered under a contract between Vietnam’s Vimedimex Medi-pharma Joint Stock Company (Vimedimex) and the UAE’s G42 Medications Trading LLC, the Haya-Vax vaccine batch reached Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi on Wednesday.

Hayat-Vax vaccine is an inactivated vaccine produced by growing the SARS-CoV-2 in cell culture and then using chemicals to inactivate the virus.

It uses technology transferred from China’s Sinopharm.

Hayat-Vax has undergone an international human clinical trial which involved 45,000 volunteers from 125 countries and measured protective efficacy, safety, and immunogenicity.

The trial results show that the vaccine has a protective effect of 78.89 percent and its generation of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 virus is 99.52 percent.

There have been no serious side effects observed in people vaccinated with Hayat-Vax.

It can be stored at temperatures of two to eight degrees Celsius.

The Ministry of Health has approved Hayat-Vax for emergency use in Vietnam, along with seven others, including the UK’s AstraZeneca, China’s Sinopharm, Russia’s Sputnik V, Cuba’s Abdala, as well as Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, all from the U.S.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s Nano Covax vaccine is undergoing necessary procedures to be authorized for emergency use. Once approved, it would be the first made-in-Vietnam COVID-19 vaccine.

Vietnam has targeted to secure 150 million coronavirus vaccine doses to inoculate at least two-thirds of its 98-million population.

It has so far received nearly 57 million jabs from different sources, including COVAX Facility, contractual purchases, and donations.

The country is speeding up its vaccination campaign in an effort to lift COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in many localities by next month, with some 32.17 million first shots and over 8.98 million second doses administered nationwide as of Wednesday, according to health ministry reports.

Since the pandemic hit Vietnam in early 2020, the Southeast Asian country has registered 779,398 infections, including 583,509 recoveries and 19,098 fatalities.

Cao Bang is the only province of Vietnam’s 63 provinces and cities which has not seen a single case.

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