Local COVID-19 vaccine rollout no later than June 2022, PM orders

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh visits Medicon Company specializing in test kit production. (Photo: VGP)

Chinh made the request following his fact-finding trip on June 24 to the Vaccine and Biological Production Company No. 1 (VABIOTECH) under the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.

During a working session with the VABIOTECH leadership, the PM recalled the government’s determination to realize the vaccine strategy, underlying the need to step up negotiations with foreign manufacturers to purchase vaccines on the one hand and accelerate local vaccine production on the other hand.

The successful implementation of the vaccine strategy plays a very important role and is the number one tool for preventing and repelling the pandemic, he stressed, adding that as economic openness reaches a high level, Vietnam cannot close its economy forever.

According to the PM, as COVID-19 vaccines are in short supply globally, and mutated strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are more dangerous, local vaccine developers must work harder to have home-grown vaccines, meeting standards.

He asked the Ministry of Health to create the best possible conditions for the testing of local vaccines in the quickest, most effective and safest manner.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long reported that several businesses have invested in production lines and are now looking for vaccine production technology, so that a large-scale vaccine factory is likely to be put into operation by the end of 2021 or early 2022 at the latest.

Meanwhile, he said the Ministry of Health has directed VABIOTECH to receive Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine production technology in two phases, trying to churn out first products in July.