Poland is donating half a million AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses and around $3.6 million worth of medical equipment to Vietnam in what is the Asian country’s largest vaccine donation during the pandemic.
As Poland’s vaccination rate has slumped in recent weeks, the government has sought to sell its excess supplies abroad, so far sending shipments to Australia, Spain, Portugal, Norway and Ukraine.
On Wednesday, deputy foreign minister Paweł Jabłoński said that a transport of vaccines along with medical equipment and personal protective gear will set off for Vietnam in the coming days. As well as the donated vaccines, Poland is making a non-profit sale of a further 3 million doses to Vietnam.
Excellent meeting between 🇵🇱 Ambassador Wojciech Gerwel & 🇻🇳 Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính.
🇵🇱 is planning to support 🇻🇳 in #COVID19 fight by donating 8t of medical equipment worth around $3,6 mln, over 500 000 of💉doses & securing the non-profit reselling of💉shots. pic.twitter.com/AzMPBIe5MO
— Ambasada RP w Hanoi (@PLinVietnam) August 17, 2021
“Polish aid is present all over the world. Poland is a country of solidarity, solidarity has always been our national trait,” said Jabłoński, speaking at a press event in the eastern city of Biała Podlaska on Wednesday as Poland sent a truck convoy with humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
In response, the Association of Vietnamese in Poland thanked the government on behalf of the local community. Vietnamese migrants and their descendants constitute Poland’s largest non-European ethnic group, as well as one of Europe’s largest Vietnamese diasporas.
“This is the greatest aid in the form of vaccines [received by] Vietnam from another country,” said the association in its press release, quoted by PAP. Vietnam has faced a dramatic shortage in vaccines, with just 1.4% of the population fully vaccinated so far (compared to 48% in Poland).
Poland has so far sold 1 million Pfizer vaccines to Australia, 2.4 million to Spain, and 0.6 million to Portugal. It has sold 1 million doses of the Moderna vaccine to Norway and 650,000 doses of AstraZeneca to Ukraine, reports PAP.
Last month, the government confirmed that it was looking to sell unused supplies, following a significant slowdown in registration for vaccination. It began to seek buyers for Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines, which have shorter shelf lives.
The transport to Vietnam is, however, the first instance of delivering vaccines as humanitarian aid rather than selling them.
With its vaccination rate slowing down, Poland recently announced that it would begin selling unused doses, with the first shipments going to Spain and Portugal.
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— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 15, 2021
Last week, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko claimed that the Polish government had offered his country AstraZeneca vaccines as humanitarian aid, but Warsaw has not commented on the remarks.
Poland’s vaccine rollout, which initially proceeded at roughly the same rate as the European Union average, has since mid-June fallen significantly behind. The government admits there has been a “very concerning” decline in registrations.
To encourage people to get the jab it has offered various incentives, including a lottery for fully vaccinated people with a 1 million zloty (€222,000) top prize. But senior officials have increasingly talked of using sticks as well as carrots, including requiring proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test result to access some venues.
Main image credit: Prachatai/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
