Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the meeting. Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh called for urgent, stronger, more drastic and faster solutions for more effective pandemic prevention and control, in the spirit of "fighting the pandemic like fighting the enemy".

Reporting at the meeting, Vietnam health minister Nguyen Thanh Long said Vietnam has detected a new variant of the coronavirus, a mix of the Indian and UK COVID-19 variants that spreads quickly by air.

“Genetic sequencing on several Covid-19 patients in Vietnam have revealed the presence of two common coronavirus variants: one first discovered in the U.K. and the other from India. A new coronavirus variant has recently been detected in Vietnam with characteristics from both the U.K. and the Indian variants. It is an Indian variant with mutations that originally belong to the U.K. variant. The Ministry of Health would announce the new coronavirus variant on the global genome map," said Minister Long.
"Laboratory cultures of the new variant, which is much more transmissible in the air than the previously known types, revealed that the virus replicated itself very quickly, explaining why so many new cases appeared in different locations in a short period,” Minister Long added.

Minister Long said the Ministry of Health is negotiating to buy and looking for all possible sources of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide in addition to accelerating the production of domestic vaccines. Up to present, Vietnam has signed contracts of more than 100 million vaccine doses for 70% of its population above 18 years old. The government is doing its best to buy extra 40 million doses to realize its set target of ensuring herd immunity within this year. People in the pandemic-hit areas, especially in Bac Giang and Bac Ninh, will be given vaccine shots as soon as possible.