Vietnam is seeking to buy COVID-19 vaccine production technology and wants to build a plant to supply the COVAX program, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health said yesterday.
India and South Africa are among developing countries that have been pushing for an intellectual property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines.
However, even with a surprise US shift last month to support a waiver, WTO talks on the issue on Monday failed to achieve a breakthrough.
“Vietnam would build the plant and would like to receive the patent so it could supply vaccines to COVAX, to other countries as well as to Vietnam,” the ministry said in a statement, following a meeting with COVAX representatives overnight.
Vietnam on Monday also pushed for private procurement of vaccines. The country of about 98 million people has so far received 2.9 million doses, including 2.6 million doses via COVAX.
“Vietnam hopes the COVAX facility will speed up its provision of vaccines to Vietnam,” Vietnamese Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said in the statement.
“Vietnam also hopes international organizations and other countries help it access COVID-19 vaccines,” he said.
The nation is asking Samsung Electronics Co and other foreign companies to find vaccines for their workers, the government Web site reported.
“The government is encouraging companies to find COVID-19 vaccines for their workers,” said Bui Hoang Mai, head of the industrial park management board in Bac Ninh Province, where Samsung operates factories that make its smartphones.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also asked local authorities to find a vaccine supply, the Web site said, citing information from the leader’s visit to a Samsung plant in Bac Ninh.
A representative of Samsung Vietnam was not immediately available for comment.
Authorities in Bac Ninh have ordered factories to set up on-site sleeping arrangements for workers and put in place other procedures to enable operations to continue while containing the virus.
In Bac Giang Province, where Apple Inc’s Vietnamese operations and Samsung suppliers are centered, officials are working to help factories reopen after they were shuttered during the closure of four industrial parks.
The health ministry has sent 200,000 vaccine doses each for Bac Ninh and Bac Giang workers to be administered within a week, the ministry’s Web site said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS