Cambodia ready to set up COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing plant

Students wait to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Photo: AFP/VNA)

Phnom Penh (VNA) - Cambodiais making all preparations to cooperate with China to set up a COVID-19 vaccinemanufacturing plant, either by end of this year or 2023, said Secretary of Stateof the Cambodian Ministry of Health Youk Sambath.

Khmer Times cited the official as saying that theministry recently had a teleconference with the China NationalPharmaceutical company (Sinopharm) and the Chinese Government on the plant establishmentin Cambodia.

The first round of discussion was fruitful andpositive, she added.

On late March 15, Cambodia received 523,100doses of AstraZeneca vaccine donated by the Hungarian Government at Phnom Penh International Airport. The gift markedthe first humanitarian assistance from Hungary to Cambodia since the Europeancountry officially reopened its embassy in the Southeast Asian nation inNovember 2020.

With this gift, Cambodia has in its storage7,800,000 doses of Sinopharm, 324,000 doses of Covishield, 2,644,940 doses ofAstraZeneca, 1,600,100 doses of Johnson & Johnson, 188,160 doses of Moderna,and 2,350,530 doses of Pfizer.

To date, it has had 43,792,540 doses ofvaccines and expects to receive more than seven million doses inSeptember, according to Sambath.

As of March 16, the country obtained the target ofvaccinating 92.27 percent of the 16-million-strong population./.

VNA