Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Tuesday morning that the government will ensure sufficient funding to administer Covid-19 vaccine to local people.

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at a meeting on March 2. Photo: Quang Hieu/VGP

“We make sure that there’s enough funding, even direct support to vaccinate as many people in Vietnam as possible with the target to all,” Phuc said at a government meeting on March 2.

“This is an urgent task requiring the healthcare system at grassroots level to implement the vaccination program in the shortest time,” he noted in a statement.

Accordingly, Phuc asked the Ministry of Health to conduct first shots within this week.

“The Ministry of Health right this week needs to take first shots to groups of people in the priority list, mostly the poor, social beneficiaries, and people at high risk of infection,” Phuc stressed.

The first doses of vaccine arrived in Vietnam on February 24, likely being injected to health workers and frontline forces (members of the steering committee for Covid-19 prevention at all levels, people working in quarantine centers, contact tracers, volunteers, reporters, among others; army officers and policemen).

Others who are subject to the inoculation include (2) Vietnamese diplomats abroad; customs and state officials working in immigration service; (3) essential providers in aviation, transportation, tourism, clean water, electricity, among others; (4) teachers and employees in education sector; people working in administration agencies having frequent contact with others; (5) people with underlying diseases and those above 65 years of age; (6) people in the pandemic-hit areas; (7) the poor and social beneficiaries; (8) people in overseas mission; (9) other people decided by the Ministry of Health basing on the requirements of the pandemic control.

It's reported that only 117,000 doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine have so far arrived in the country of nearly 100 million people. Other batches totaling dozens of million doses are scheduled to be delivered within this year.