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.
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
ANGER: US-based activists reported protests at 174 locations across the country, with at least 582 arrested and 15 killed, while Khamenei said the protesters were ‘paid’ Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday said that “rioters must be put in their place” after a week of protests that have shaken the Islamic Republic, likely giving security forces a green light to aggressively put down the demonstrations. The first comments by 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei come as violence surrounding the demonstrations sparked by Iran’s ailing economy has killed at least 15 people, according to human rights activists. The protests show no sign of stopping and follow US President Donald Trump warning Iran on Friday that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the US “will come to their rescue.” While it remains
RSS