Dr Park made the statement in an interview with the Vietnam News Agency on September 10.

“We have seen human resources and technical experts sent for surge support to provinces that needed additional capacities. The whole-of-society approach is led by the highest level of the Government, with the Prime Minister now heading the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 prevention and control,” he said. “This demonstrates the strong determination of the Government to combat the outbreak situation.” 

Dr. Park said a few COVID-19 vaccine candidates are being developed by manufacturers in Vietnam and some are already at clinical trial phases.

WHO has supported Vietnam in strengthening the capacity of national regulatory authority of vaccine and medicine, the NRA. The NRA Vietnam has been certified as the Maturity Level 3 by WHO in 2020 which is the second highest level in WHO assessment scheme of NRA. It means that the NRA in Vietnam is capable to guide vaccine manufactures and evaluate the efficacy, safety and quality of vaccine candidates.

According to Dr. Park, Vietnam is still in a very complicated and difficult outbreak situation, with number of cases crossing more than half million since beginning of September.

He said there is still a lot of tasks ahead to overcome and the next few weeks will be critical.

“WHO remains confident that Vietnam’s robust public health emergency response is on the right track in managing the current outbreaks,” he said./.

VNA