The syringes and safety boxes will be distributed to vaccination points as needed while the refrigerators will be delivered to remote communes in 35 provinces that currently lack this equipment.

With a storage capacity of 61L, the refrigerators will each be able to store enough vaccines doses for targeted COVID-19 vaccination in the communes.

Speaking at the handover ceremony, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long expressed appreciation for the valuable and much needed support from the Australian Government and UNICEF.

Meanwhile, Marise Payne, Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women said Australia commits to cooperating with the Government of Viet Nam and UNICEF in helping Viet Nam’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout efforts.

Australia will share a further 2.6 million COVID-19 vaccine doses with Viet Nam, raising the total doses offered by Australia to 7.8 million.

Announced in April 2021, the Australia-UNICEF partnership provides a unique package that will assist Viet Nam across a range of areas vital to the successful delivery of a mass immunization program against COVID-19.

Along with upgrades to cold chain equipment and the purchase of immunization devices, the partnership supports training for healthcare workers, communication campaigns, monitoring of vaccine deployment and planning and implementation of the vaccine rollout in remote provinces in Viet Nam. 

The partnership is part of Australia’s comprehensive AUD60 million package of support for Viet Nam’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout./.