Reuters: Vietnam chooses prevention rather than rushing for costly COVID-19 vaccine

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Opening the article, the author said “Through months of aggressive mass testing, military-run centralized quarantine, and early border closures, Vietnam has kept its coronavirus tally to just 1,210 cases and gone over two months without community transmission”.

Just 35 people have died from COVID-19 in Vietnam, according to official data, with the country widely praised for its quick responses to the outbreaks of COVID-19.

A man wears a face mask as he walks through a banner promoting prevention against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Photo: VNA

The author also cited Deputy Prime Minister, Vu Duc Dam as saying that “The vaccine is a story for the future. Demand is far higher than supply, and we have to pay large deposits to secure our position, which I see as very high risk and a waste of money and time. We will continue to deal with COVID as we are now”.

Medical staff collect health information from arrivals at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCMC, August 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Huu Khoa.

In August, as Vietnam struggled with the second wave of COVID-19 after more than three months without discovering any infectious cases in the community, Hanoi said it had registered to purchase 50-150 million doses of a Russian vaccine.

Vietnam will also buy from Britain, where it has a partnership to develop a home-grown vaccine with the University of Bristol.

“We have to be prepared for the fact that the pandemic will not end until 2021,” said Dam. “Our home-grown vaccine will enter human trials this month but won’t be available until end-2021.”

Vietnam has spent almost 18 trillion VND (US$776.7 million) on controlling the pandemic and its impacts, official data shows.

Its measures have put its economy on track to recover faster than most.

The article concluded by stating that in September, the government said it was targeting gross domestic product growth of 2.0%-2.5% this year and 6.7% in 2021.

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