Diplomacy and the ‘battle’ to access vaccine supplies

Joining hands to repel the epidemic, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Vietnamese representative agencies abroad have been making efforts to find, approach, and “fight” to collect Covid-19 vaccine sources for the people.
In the context of a resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic, countries and territories around the world speed up vaccination against Covid-19.

In Vietnam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh requested to resolutely and effectively implement the vaccine strategy, which accelerates access to purchase and import of Covid-19 vaccine sources for Vietnam, including through COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Program (COVAX). UNICEF and WHO representatives in Vietnam welcomed the first batch of Covid-19 vaccine including 811,200 doses in COVAX’s commitment to support Vietnam. (Source: UNICEF) From defense to attack According to the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Le Thi Thu Hang, following the Prime Minister’s direction with the spirit of “fighting the epidemic like fighting the enemy”, right from the time the Covid-19 epidemic broke out and countries conducted research and production, Successfully testing a vaccine against the disease, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Vietnamese representative agencies abroad have made efforts to find, approach and negotiate with partners to provide vaccines against Covid-19 to soon import vaccines using vaccines. used in the country. In the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, the COVAX mechanism is one of the best solutions to ensure the rapid and equitable deployment of safe and effective vaccines to all countries around the world. COVAX is coordinated by three organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and the Coalition for Epidemic Response Innovations (CEPI), with distribution partners being United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). With the policy of joining COVAX early, in December 2020, Vietnam submitted a dossier to this mechanism to propose vaccine support. On that basis, COVAX has allocated vaccines and committed to provide Vietnam with a vaccine quantity guaranteed to immunize 20% of the population, equivalent to nearly 39 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine. Up to now, Vietnam has received more than 2.5 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine under the COVAX mechanism. This is part of a total of 4.1 million doses of vaccine, worth up to $17 million, committed to Vietnam by COVAX in the first six months of 2021. The remaining batches will arrive in Vietnam by the end of this year and early 2022. All vaccines are provided free of charge by COVAX through UNICEF. Thus, up to now, this is the largest amount of vaccines Vietnam has received. According to Mr. Do Hung Viet, Director of the Department of International Organizations (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), participating in Vietnam’s COVAX program is about finding “the right person at the right time”. COVAX has promptly provided the first two batches of vaccines so that Vietnam can deploy its vaccination strategy, especially for the frontline forces against the epidemic, contributing to helping us begin to change the state of epidemic prevention from defense to prevention. translation attack. In ASEAN, before Vietnam, two countries have committed to contribute to COVAX: Singapore ($5 million) and the Philippines ($100,000). Spread the spirit of solidarity Up to now, COVAX has received funding from more than 40 countries and partners, mainly from the US, European Union (EU), Japan, Australia, UK… AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, distributed under the COVAX mechanism, has been vaccinated in Vietnam since early March. For COVAX’s goal of providing 2 billion doses of vaccine to developing countries, middle and low-income countries, the amount of money that COVAX needs to continue to mobilize is still very large. In addition, the global Covid-19 vaccine supply chain is being disrupted and disrupted by the resurgence of the pandemic in many places, especially in India – a large vaccine production “factory”. best of the world. In that context, the COVAX mechanism must be flexible and adjusted to meet more urgent needs in places where the epidemic situation is severe. The supply is low, many places have severe outbreaks of the disease, greatly affecting the vaccine supply schedule of COVAX. As a major beneficiary of the COVAX program, Vietnam is determined to join hands with the international community to respond to the pandemic. This is also the policy that Vietnam is strongly promoting in recent years. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, Vietnam has stepped up to strengthen international cooperation and solidarity to cope with the epidemic, because Vietnam understands that no country will be safe when the world is still not safe. With that policy and spirit, Vietnam has decided to contribute $500,000 to the COVAX initiative. Thus, Vietnam is classified as one of the few developing countries contributing to COVAX. Mr. Do Hung Viet emphasized that the contribution to COVAX demonstrates Vietnam’s sense of responsibility in global efforts, strengthens multilateral cooperation, thereby enhancing Vietnam’s image and position in the eyes of foreign partners. international organizations as well as international friends. As soon as Vietnam announced its contribution to COVAX, many international organizations, including GAVI, UNICEF, WHO… gave thanks and appreciated this decision. “Through this contribution, Vietnam hopes to have a synergistic effect, spreading the spirit of international solidarity so that governments of other countries and other partners can take necessary actions to increase support for the country. COVAX”, shared Mr. Do Hung Viet. The frontline against epidemics abroad The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is tasked by the Government with the Ministry of Health as the main agency in finding and accessing vaccine sources. With a network of more than 90 Vietnamese representative offices abroad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has coordinated to drastically implement this task. Thereby, Vietnam has access to a number of vaccine sources of countries and international organizations to contribute to Vietnam’s vaccination strategy. Currently, on a global scale, vaccines are not only a medical issue but also contain many political factors. The decision of countries to support each other with vaccines depends a lot on bilateral relations in many fields. Therefore, the Vietnamese representative missions abroad and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have conducted hundreds of contacts and mobilized access to vaccine sources in countries and international organizations. This tireless effort has yielded practical results such as the recent commitments to provide Covid-19 vaccines from COVAX and the US, Russia, Japan, China… to Vietnam. UNICEF has also expressed its willingness to support our country in accessing and purchasing a vaccine against Covid-19. As the world’s largest vaccine “buyer” with longstanding relationships with leading pharmaceutical companies, UNICEF has the ability to assist Vietnam in connecting and negotiating contract terms, prices and timeframes. vaccine supply time. Mr. Do Hung Viet said that this is an effective channel to access and buy vaccines that Vietnam needs to take advantage of. In addition to accessing vaccine sources of countries, international organizations, and Vietnamese representative missions abroad, they also make efforts to connect with state and provincial governments in some countries, taking advantage of the relationship. Twinning relationship with localities to mobilize vaccine support. Obviously, dealing with the epidemic requires the cooperation of the whole community. While doctors and medical staff are on the frontline against the epidemic at home, diplomats are also soldiers on the front lines abroad to “fight” to collect vaccine sources to increase vaccination coverage. vaccination for Vietnamese people, contributing to early fight against the pandemic. COVAX’s initial goal is to purchase and mobilize 2 billion doses of vaccine by the end of 2021, enough to protect high-risk, vulnerable people and frontline healthcare workers worldwide, half of which were shipped to 92 low- and middle-income countries to vaccinate about 20% of the population of these countries. However, because the amount of COVAX vaccine received was much short of the set target, by May 24, 2021, COVAX had only distributed 72 million doses of the vaccine to 125 countries and economies.