COVID-19: Joint efforts made for a healthy, victorious Vietnam

Hanoi (VNA) - The COVID-19 vaccine fund, making debut on June 5, has attracted great support from people from all social strata, enterprises, organisations, and individuals both at home and aboard.

Connecting hearts

Addressing the launch of the fund, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed that each donation is significant to the safety of each person, each family, the community, and the entire society.

This is the fund of humanity, the spirit of solidarity, and hearts connected to hearts so that the country can together surmount difficulties, helping create a victorious Vietnam, and once again contributing to the country’s glorious history with a triumph over the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government leader emphasised.

At the launching ceremony, organisations, businesses, ministries, sectors, localities, and people nationwide donated trillions of VND to the COVID-19 vaccine fund.

Apart from texting to donate, people can also make contributions to the fund via the website www.vietnamkhoemanh.vn, which runs the message “For a healthy Vietnam”.

According to Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long, vaccination is the most effective measure to protect people’s lives and bring life back to normal.

Most of countries around the world, including Vietnam, have been striving to ensure vaccine coverage for at least two-thirds of their population by the end of 2021, he went on.

He noted that to access COVID-19 vaccines amid a global supply shortage, the Ministry of Health has held more than 200 discussions, meetings, and negotiation sessions with vaccine manufacturers so that the country can secure 130 million vaccine doses this year.

So far, more than 1.3 million vaccine doses have been injected into people, Long said, adding that the Ministry of Health is pushing ahead with negotiations so as to gain 150 million doses for inoculation to achieve herd immunity in 2021.

Working for the sake of the community

At the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine fund, some businesses of billionaire Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, Chairwoman of the Sovico Holdings JSC and CEO of Vietjet Air, made a donation of 100 billion VND (4.3 million USD).

The contribution is part of a number of voluntary activities carried out by Thao’s enterprises.

In 2020, HDBank, where Thao serves as Standing Vice Chairwoman, was among the banks taking the lead in providing preferential loans for clients hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. The credit included 24 trillion VND for small- and medium-sized enterprises and another 10 trillion VND for micro-sized firms, individual business households, and individual clients expanding business and investing in hi-tech agriculture, clean agriculture, and renewable energy.

For its part, Vietjet has conducted hundreds of flights repatriating passengers from pandemic-hit areas worldwide and carried healthcare workers and medical supplies free of charge.

Thao herself has spent money sourced from her own charity fund to purchase millions of face masks to help people in the US, the UK, France, and Germany to cope with the pandemic.

In addition, her staff have also opened charity kitchens to offer thousands of free meals every day to lottery ticket vendors, scrap collectors, motorbike taxi drivers, and the poor.

Apart from joining hands in the fight against COVID-19, Thao is also known for initiating a programme to present scholarships and gifts for children at orphanages and those from poor families and to give warm clothes to those in remote areas./.