HCM City (VNS/VNA) - AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine isestimated to have prevented 232,766 deaths in Vietnam, an independentassessment of vaccine effectiveness showed.

The analysis conducted by Airfinity, a health data firm, covers the periodfrom December 8, 2020 to December 8, 2021 and shows that more than 72million doses were delivered to Vietnam, making AstraZeneca’s COVID-19vaccine one of the most used in the country.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine was the first COVID-19 vaccine approved by the Ministryof Health, and the first to be supplied in large quantities to support Vietnam’snational vaccination campaign and pandemic response effort.

Nitin Kapoor, Chairman and General Director, AstraZeneca Vietnam and Asia AreaFrontier Markets, said: “This data reaffirms that vaccination is the fastestway to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, and that our vaccine is highly effectivein preventing serious illness and death. AstraZeneca remains committed tocollaborating closely with the Vietnamese Government, Ministry of Health, andour partners to protect people’s lives, in addition to achieving our mutuallong-term goal of strengthening health system sustainability and resilience.”

The data also showed that globally, the AstraZeneca vaccine is estimated tohave saved more than 6.3 million lives.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, AstraZeneca and its global partners havereleased more than three billion vaccine doses to more than 180 countries, andapproximately two-thirds of these doses have been delivered to low- andlower-middle income countries.

In July 2022, data from a real-world evidence study at Thailand’s Chiang MaiUniversity showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine is 73% effective against thehighly transmissible Omicron variant when it is used as a fourth dose boosteron top of any previous primary or booster vaccine.

To provide additional protection for immunocompromised and high-riskpopulations against COVID-19, AstraZeneca has also developed a long-actingantibody combination that has been available in Vietnam since March 2022,following a special import approval by the Ministry of Health. According tovarious studies, the antibody duo has retained its neutralising activity againstOmicron SARS-CoV-2 subvariants and all tested variants of concern to date.

AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine was invented by the University of Oxford. Ituses a replication-deficient chimpanzee viral vector based on a weakenedversion of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections inchimpanzees and contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spikeprotein. After vaccination, the surface spike protein is produced, priming theimmune system to attack the SARS-CoV-2 virus if it later infects the body./.