Officials are making preparations to receive the shots that will be used as the first jab.
The government may send a special plane to bring the doses from Beijing, officials said. We have written to the foreign ministry to take action. Bangladesh Air Force will probably bring the vaccine from Beijing on May 10, Syed Mojibul Huq, additional secretary of the Health Services Division of the health ministry, told The Daily Star yesterday.
The Chinese embassy in Dhaka on April 29 in a letter addressed to Joint Secretary Shahriar Kader Siddiky of the Economic Relations Division said a special flight would be needed to bring the 5,02,400 doses.
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21 lakh doses vaccine by May first week
21 lakh doses vaccine by May first week
Bangladesh will get 2l doses of Covid-19 vaccine by the first week of May.
Prof Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam, DG of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) informed this on Sunday.
“Baximco Pharmaceuticals will import a portion of these vaccines while the rest will come from COVAX scheme,” he said.
The DG health informed this while talking to reporters after an online discussion marking the World Malaria Day.
Of the total doses, Beximco Pharmaceuticals, an agent to bring the vaccines from the Serum Institute of India, will bring 20 lakh doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot in the first week of May and one lakh Pfizer vaccines will be arrived under COVAX, he added.
With the disruption in the supply of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India (SII), the government has formed a five-member committee to find alternative sources of Covid vaccines.
The committee, led by the director general of the Drug Administration, will find the alternative sources and submit a report to the Prime Minister s Office within seven days.
A meeting was held in the PMO, chaired by the principal secretary, where this decision was made. There is an uncertainty over vaccine availability. We have formed a five-member committee to find alternative sources of vaccines, Prof Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam, DG of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), told The Daily Star yesterday.
Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm has offered 60 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccine to Bangladesh when there has been a surge in daily infection rates and deaths for days, said officials.
With Serum Institute of India failing to comply with the commitment to supply three crore vaccine shots in six installments, the Bangladesh government started to explore alternative sources for the jabs in a desperate attempt to continue the inoculation against the Covid-19, they said.
As part of that effort, the Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm through a medium has recently offered Bangladesh to give the 60 lakh doses, the officials added.
Contacted, Health Minister Zahid Maleque told The Daily Star that the Chinese Sinopharm, through its trustee sources, offered 60 lakh doses of its Covid-19 vaccine called BBIBP-CorV.