Frontline workers against Covid-19, teachers and people working in aviation and tourism will be among the first to get the AstraZeneca vaccine provided through global initiative Covax.
Others in the priority list approved by the Ministry of Health Monday are diplomatic personnel, customs and immigration officers, military and police forces, those working in essential services like transport, people aged 65 and above, and those with chronic diseases that make them more vulnerable to the disease.
People who are seeking to study or work abroad or are living in pandemic-hit areas are also in the list.
Covax, a global mechanism for developing, manufacturing and procuring Covid-19 vaccines and supply member countries, is expected to provide Vietnam with 4.9 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in the first half of this year. The vaccine is developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca in collaboration with Oxford University and can be stored at 2-8 degrees Celsius.
The 1.2 million doses scheduled to arrive in the first quarter will be given to over 500,000 medics and 116,000 others working on the frontlines, with each getting two doses.
Over 3.6 million doses will be delivered in the second quarter and given to 9,200 customs officers, 4,080 diplomatic personnel, over one million soldiers, 304,000 police officers, and 550,000 teachers.
Around 33 million doses will arrive in the second half, and this time seniors, people with chronic diseases, more teachers, and workers in aviation, tourism, transport, and other essential services will get the shots.
The vaccines under Covax will be provided free of charge.
They will arrive at Hanoi’s Noi Bai and HCMC’s Tan Son Nhat airports, and be sent to warehouses.
Vietnam approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use last month, days after the first locally transmitted cases were detected in nearly two months.
It has negotiated supply of 60 million doses from Covax this year to cover around 70 percent of its 98-million population, Minister of Heath Nguyen Thanh Long said.
The country has also signed deals to buy 30 million doses from the producer.
It is also stepping up negotiations with U.S. companies Pfizer and Moderna and vaccine manufacturers in Russia and some other countries to secure a total of 150 million doses in 2021, Long said.
There have been 803 cases of Covid-19 in 13 localities since the new outbreak began on January 28.
Reported by Le Nga, @Vnexpress