Coronavirus: US to give Vietnam 1 million more vaccine shots as record cases reported
- US Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is in Hanoi, said the Pfizer-BioNTech shots will begin arriving in Vietnam in 24 hours
- Elsewhere, Japan is expanding a virus state of emergency to eight more regions, while Papua New Guinea has banned flights from India over Covid-19 rule breaches
The first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech shots will begin arriving in 24 hours, she said. The latest US donation brought the total to 6 million so far.
This came as Vietnam’s health ministry reported a record 12,096 new Covid-19 cases and 348 deaths on Wednesday, most of which were detected in Ho Chi Minh City, the epicentre of the current outbreak. The Southeast Asian country has so far recorded more than 380,000 cases and 9,349 deaths, 99.6 per cent of which have been detected since May this year, driven by the Delta variant.
Harris also announced the launch of a new Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Southeast Asia regional office. The new CDC office will be one of four regional offices globally, and it’s focused on collaborating with regional governments on research and training to deal with and prevent global health crises.
Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc said US assistance on vaccinations was “truly valuable and meaningful to Vietnam at a time when we are faced with ample difficulties posed by the Covid-19 pandemic”.