The United States delivered one more Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine shipment of over 1.3 million jabs to Hanoi on Saturday, bringing its total vaccine donations to Vietnam to 13.4 million doses, the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City has reported.

“More vaccines are here! We are excited to announce the arrival of over 1.3 million doses of Pfizer vaccine this morning in Hanoi. More are on the way!” the U.S. Consulate General said on its verified Facebook page on Saturday.

The latest aid has raised the total number of doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated by the U.S. to Vietnam to around 13.4 million doses.

Earlier, two other shipments totaling over 2.63 million of Pfizer vaccine shots gifted by the U.S. arrived in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City on October 24 and 25, respectively.

The U.S. has committed more than US$30.2 million in COVID-19 assistance to Vietnam since the beginning of the pandemic. 

“We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Vietnam in the fight against COVID-19,” the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam said in a recent release. 

In addition to vaccine donations, the U.S. has provided Vietnam with COVID-19 test and vaccine storage equipment, and life-saving devices such as ventilators, oxygen concentrators, and liquid-oxygen tanks.

On October 12, the Ministry of Health received 36 ultra-low temperature freezers donated by the U.S. to assist Vietnam in COVID-19 vaccine storage.

At the Global COVID-19 Summit on September 22, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an additional 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses to 92 low- and middle-income countries around the world and the African Union, bringing its total global commitment to more than 1.1 billion doses.

"Vietnam has been a leading recipient of these doses," the embassy said in a statement on October 25. 

The U.S. has so far provided more than 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to more than 100 countries around the world and will continue to donate vaccine doses globally as supply becomes available, according to the embassy. 

In addition to the U.S., the largest donor of COVID-19 vaccines to Vietnam so far, the Southeast Asian country has received vaccine donations from other countries including Japan, Australia, the UK, France, Italy, Russia, the Czech Republic, and China, among others.

The nation aims to secure 150 million COVID-19 vaccine shots to cover at least two-thirds of its 98-million population, and it has so far got around 110 million jabs from different sources, including the COVAX Facility, contractual purchases, and donations.

By Friday, the country had administered nearly 59.35 million first shots and some 26.96 million second jabs to people nationwide, the health ministry reported.

Since erupting in Vietnam in early 2020, the pandemic has caused 953,547 infection cases including 837,347 recoveries and 22,412 deaths.

Recently, the nation’s daily new infections and deaths have sharply fallen, to 7,504 and 70 on Friday from 13,137 and 281 two months earlier, according to the ministry’s data.

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