Vietnam has received a shipment of 500,000 Sinopharm vaccine doses donated by China, Reuters quoted the health ministry as saying, as the country is ramping up inoculations to battle against a more widespread outbreak.

The Southeast Asian nation approved China's Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use against Covid-19 in early June.

The vaccines will be used for three groups: Chinese citizens in Vietnam, Vietnamese who have plans to work or study in China and people who live in areas near China's borders, the health ministry has said in a statement.

Vietnam's domestic inoculation programme, which started in March, has so far relied heavily on around four million shots of AstraZeneca's vaccine.

Nearly 2.4 million people in Vietnam have had one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, while 115,315 have been fully vaccinated, according to official data.