FILE PHOTO: Health workers wait for their turn as Vietnam starts its official rollout of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine for health workers, at Hai Duong Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Hai Duong province, Vietnam, on Mar 8, 2021. HANOI: European business leaders in Vietnam are urging the government to allow private companies to procure COVID-19 vaccines and inoculate their own staff, as the country battles its biggest outbreak since the start of the pandemic.
"This would reduce the burden on the state budget while also helping to accelerate the government's vaccination drive," the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam said in a statement.After successfully containing the coronavirus for most of last year, Vietnam is now tackling a new outbreak that is spreading more quickly, infecting more than 3,200 people in 30 of its 63 cities and provinces since late April.
The Southeast Asian country, with a population of 98 million, has administered more than 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses so far out of 2.9 million it has received, well short of the vaccination rate in some neighbouring countries. EuroCham also encouraged the government to ease quarantine regulations for investors and experts who have been vaccinated in their home countries, it said in the statement.
It said the three-week quarantine period foreigners currently face would result in fewer specialists coming, hitting foreign investment and hurting the operations of companies depending on key technicians.