The purchase of the freezers fulfills an official request from the Government of Viet Nam and the Vietnamese Ministry of Health to the U.S. due to their acquisition of 31 million Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccines set to arrive in Viet Nam by August 30, 2021.

This assistance will provide one unit to each of the 63 provinces in Viet Nam and 14 larger units at the national level for COVID-19 vaccine storage.

This acquisition shows the commitment of the U.S. to the health and safety of Vietnamese by providing humanitarian relief to them during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Staff Sgt. Christian Luevano, 36th Contracting Squadron contracting officer.

A purchase like this usually takes anywhere from 45-120 days to coordinate and process but Luevano and his team worked late nights and weekends to get this contract finalized in just under two weeks.

Not only will it enhance Viet Nam’s capability to distribute vaccines with special storage requirements, it demonstrates the U.S. commitment on working with partners across the globe to end the devastating public health and economic effects of this pandemic, he added.

According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. has donated five million Moderna vaccine doses to Viet Nam so far, and has committed over US$20 million in COVID-19 related assistance to Viet Nam since the start of the pandemic. 

This includes 100 American-made ventilators provided by USAID worth US$2.8 million, and another US$4.7 million from USAID to help Viet Nam prepare laboratory systems, support technical experts for preparedness and response, prevent infections in health-care settings, provide public health screening at points of entry, and more.

USAID has also provided US$5 million to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Vietnamese economy.