This is as part of a deal to acquire five million doses that the ministry gave permission for the State-owned Saigon Pharmaceutical Group (Sapharco) in HCM City to import. The first batch of one million doses landed in the city on July 31.

Vero Cell was approved for emergency use by the WHO in May, and given conditional approval for use in Viet Nam on June 4.

Earlier, the Chinese Government donated 500,000 doses Viet Nam, which have been used for Chinese nationals living and working in the country, Vietnamese residents in border areas with China, and people who engage in trade and service exchanges with Viet Nam's northern neighbor.

To date, the Southeast Asian country has received a total of 21.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines and is expected to get additional 9.3 million doses in late August and September.

In addition, around 60 million vaccine doses are scheduled to land in the country in the last quarter of 2021.

As of late August 13, 13,256,472 vaccine doses were administered in Viet Nam, with 1,191,855 people fully vaccinated./.