France, Hungary offer COVID-19 vaccines, rapid test kits to Vietnam

France has decided to share 670,000 doses of COVID-19 Astra Zeneca vaccine with Vietnam via the COVAX Facility, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter on August 12.

The French Embassy in Hanoi said the vaccine doses will be transported and handed over to Vietnam as soon as possible, scheduled for late August or early September to serve the pandemic fight in the Southeast Asian nation.  

The sharing has reflected the importance France attaches to the bilateral strategic partnership, and responded to the good deeds of the Vietnamese Government and people towards France in the first days when COVID-19 ravaged the country.

Vietnam is the second Asian nation, after Indonesia, to receive France’s vaccine as relief aid at this time, which forms part of the European country’s commitments to sharing at least 30 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines with developing countries hard hit by the pandemic through the COVAX Facility by the end of the year. 

The Hungarian Government has also decided to aid Vietnam with 100,000 doses of Astra Zeneca vaccine and 100,000 rapid test kits.

The donations have demonstrated the fine comprehensive partnership between the two countries over the past seven decades, their mutual support in hard times and their resolve to ward off the pandemic.

Given complex developments of the pandemic, with the more variants emerging, the Vietnamese Government has viewed accessing different vaccine sources and widespread inoculation as an important, urgent solution.