Four days after receiving 4.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said on Wednesday that they were expecting to get 3.5 million more by July.
“There would be no shortage of vaccine ahead,” he told reporters at his residence, “We have made a good line up. Now we are in a good position.”
The good news came at a time when the government was looking for more doses to vaccinate as many people as possible to contain the pandemic.
The government recorded 201 Covid-19 deaths, the highest number in a single day since the pandemic began last year in March, in the last 24 hours till 8am on Wednesday. During the period, 11,162 fresh cases were identified, the second highest in a day.
A countrywide lockdown is going on to prevent the spread of the virus.
The foreign minister said the new vaccines would come from different sources under the COVAX framework which is managed by the WHO and the Gavi.
Japan is likely to give 2.5 million doses while the European Union will give 1 million under COVAX.
“The exact number of doses is not yet fixed, but we are expecting to get this volume of doses by this month,” he said, adding that those are likely to be AstraZeneca vaccines.
Bangladesh started the vaccination campaign with AstraZeneca vaccine bought from Serum Institute of India in February, much earlier than many other countries in the world.
But the Serum stopped their commercial supply after giving seven million doses due to the rise in infections in India.
The foreign minister said they are hopeful that Serum would give the rest (23 million) of the purchased vaccine when COVID situation improves in India.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in parliament on Saturday assured that there will be no more problems with the Covid-19 vaccine supply in the country.
"Vaccines have started coming; more will come. 80% of the public will be vaccinated free of cost," she had said.
Earlier, Bangladesh received 4.5 million doses of Covid19 vaccines between Friday night and Saturday morning.
Of those, 2.5 million were Moderna doses arrived from the United States as a 'gift' under the WHO and Gavi's Covax mechanism and the rest were from China's Sinopharm under the commercial purchase deal.
The United States also informed that they would send more vaccines. COVAX is a global alliance aimed at equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines.
Apart from donations, the government is also engaged with companies to buy vaccines from China and Russia.
The Chinese embassy in Dhaka said their companies are also in discussion with Bangladeshi drug- makers to co-produce vaccines here. Bangladesh has so far approved eight vaccines to control the pandemic. Those are: Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, CoronaVac, Pfizer, Covishield, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm.
