The funds, approved by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, would be used by the defense ministry for various tasks including receiving people at quarantine camps, managing those passing through the border and making Lunar New Year bonus and other payments to personnel engaged in fighting the pandemic.

The PM had last month approved a VND7.65 trillion payment to the Ministry of Health to purchase around 61 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer and the Vietnam Vaccine JSC.

For the whole of 2020 and the first half of 2021, the state budget has spent around VND168.8 trillion on pandemic fight and supporting affected citizens and businesses, according to the National Assembly Economic Committee.

Since late April, Vietnam has been experiencing its worst Covid-19 wave yet, with 105,287 cases recorded so far. HCMC accounts for 68,271 of these cases.