Vietnam approved its first vaccine for the new coronavirus and cut short a key ruling Communist Party meeting on Saturday as it battled its biggest flare-up yet of COVID-19, state media reported.
The new outbreak, in a country of some 98 million people that has been highly successful in curbing the spread of the pandemic, began Thursday and has spread to Hanoi, where the ruling party is holding its five-yearly congress to pick a new leadership.
Thanks to targeted mass testing and a centralized quarantine program, Vietnam has recorded just 1,739 cases since the disease was detected a year ago, including 873 locally transmitted infections, according to official data.