AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. (Photo courtesy AstraZeneca Vietnam)HCM City (VNS/VNA) – AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine is
estimated to have prevented 232,766 deaths in Vietnam, an independent
assessment of showed.
The analysis conducted by , a health data firm, covers the period
from December 8, 2020 to December 8, 2021 and shows that more than 72
million doses were delivered to Vietnam, making AstraZeneca’s COVID-19
vaccine one of the most used in the country.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine was the first COVID-19 vaccine approved by the Ministry
of Health, and the first to be supplied in large quantities to support Vietnam’s
national vaccination campaign and pandemic response effort.
Nitin Kapoor, Chairman and General Director, AstraZeneca Vietnam and Asia Area
Frontier Markets, said: “This data reaffirms that vaccination is the fastest
way to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, and that our vaccine is highly effective
in preventing serious illness and death. AstraZeneca remains committed to
collaborating closely with the Vietnamese Government, Ministry of Health, and
our partners to protect people’s lives, in addition to achieving our mutual
long-term goal of strengthening health system sustainability and resilience.”
The data also showed that globally, the AstraZeneca vaccine is estimated to
have saved more than 6.3 million lives.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and its global partners have
released more than three billion vaccine doses to more than 180 countries, and
approximately two-thirds of these doses have been delivered to low- and
lower-middle income countries.
In July 2022, data from a real-world evidence study at Thailand’s Chiang Mai
University showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine is 73% effective against the
highly transmissible Omicron variant when it is used as a fourth dose booster
on top of any previous primary or booster vaccine.
To provide additional protection for immunocompromised and high-risk
populations against COVID-19, AstraZeneca has also developed a long-acting
antibody combination that has been available in Vietnam since March 2022,
following a special import approval by the Ministry of Health. According to
various studies, the antibody duo has retained its neutralising activity against
Omicron SARS-CoV-2 subvariants and all tested variants of concern to date.
AstraZeneca’s was invented by the University of Oxford. It
uses a replication-deficient chimpanzee viral vector based on a weakened
version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections in
chimpanzees and contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike
protein. After vaccination, the surface spike protein is produced, priming the
immune system to attack the SARS-CoV-2 virus if it later infects the body./.
Source: VietnamPlus
