“USAID and the U.S. Government are proud to continue our strong collaboration with the Government and people of Vietnam in jointly addressing the national and global challenge of infectious diseases. Today, USAID is pleased to join one of our key partners, UNICEF, and the Ministry of Health, to recognize our enduring collaboration through our support of refrigerators to 12 provinces to help accelerate equitable access to and delivery of safe and effective doses of COVID-19 vaccines and other routine vaccines for children,” said Dr. Myat Htoo Razak, USAID’s Senior Global Health Security Advisor at the handover event. 

The vaccine refrigerators - HBC-80 model - will be delivered to 590 hard-to-reach communes in 12 provinces in Northern and Central regions of Viet Nam.

The model can maintain cold conditions for vaccines that must be stored at a temperature range of +2˚C to +8˚C, which is required for the majority of vaccines managed under the Expanded Immunization Programme.

With a storage capacity of 61L, each refrigerator will be able to store enough vaccine doses for routine immunization and targeted COVID-19 vaccination in the communes.
 
“This support is crucial to ensure that vaccines are safely stored and delivered at commune level, enabling children to be vaccinated as soon as they are due –rather than waiting to collect vaccines from a higher-level storage facility that is far away. This is especially important nowadays, when Vietnam is making efforts to reverse the significant decline in routine vaccination with UNICEF’s support to ensure 5-in-1 vaccine supply,” said Maharajan Muthu, Chief of Child Survival and Development at UNICEF Vietnam.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, USAID and UNICEF worked with the Ministry of Health to bolster communication campaigns providing useful information to the public, as well as to support with the infection prevention, control and response efforts.

USAID, in partnership with UNICEF, will continue to support Viet Nam in improving the capacity of immunization systems. 

PV