President Nguyen Xuan Phuc (Photo: VGP)

At the invitation of US President Joe Biden, President Phuc delivered a speech at the Global COVID-19 Summit held on the sidelines of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday (New York time).

He said protecting people's lives and health must be a top priority. To do that, it is necessary to take drastic action for early detection, rapid tracing, timely isolation and effective treatment, strengthening testing capacity, ensuring oxygen, ventilators and treatment drugs, especially quick, large scale vaccination, President Phuc said.

“I welcome the Conference’s decision to establish the Global Health Security Fund, which will contribute to ensuring resources for pandemic response efforts. I think vaccination expansion in parallel with effective drug use is key to defeating the pandemic, protecting people's lives, and promoting economic recovery and development. Vietnam proposes improving research and development capacity for vaccine production, including the creation of vaccine production centers and networks in regions through strengthening production cooperation and technology transfer for developing countries, supporting developing countries to obtain more vaccines, and removing vaccine supply barriers. Vietnam is willing to join these efforts.”