Prime Minister Hun Sen has received new donations in the form of 20 trucks and handed them over to health departments in the capital and 11 provinces for use in transporting Covid-19 vaccines to the public.

Or Vandine, health ministry spokeswoman and head of the National Covid-19 vaccination committee, said the vehicles not only served to facilitate and push vaccination access throughout the Kingdom but could also be used to transport medical equipment that required cooling.

“These trucks have the capability of cooling goods to -20 degrees Celsius, so they are very useful to the public health sector,” she said.

She added that this was the third phase of the scheduled delivery of such vehicles. The first shipment arrived in July 2021 and the second in October. A total of 130 had been delivered across the three phases.

The latest 20 trucks were delivered to the Phnom Penh municipal health department and the provincial health departments of Banteay Meanchey, Battambang, Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu, Kampong Thom, Kampot, Kandal, Prey Veng, Siem Reap, Takeo and Tbong Khmum.

Vandine added that of the 130 vehicles, 13 had been earmarked to be handed over to the Lao government. Three had already been transferred, with the remaining 10 to be gifted to the neighbouring country on March 12.

Separately on March 10, the ministry flatly rejected the publication of “fabricated” information regarding the claim that Covid-19 vaccinations from China had caused leukaemia.

“The publication of this fabricated and inaccurate information was meant to mislead and deliberately pollute society,” it said.

The ministry appealed to people to stop sharing the fake information immediately and asked police to take legal action.

The statement was in response to the website HealthSite.com, which published an article on March 9 claiming that Sinovac and Sinopharm had led to an increase of leukaemia cases.

The website claimed to have based its article on data from the National Health Commission of China.