Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday (Feb 27) issued directives for procurement of another three crore doses of the Covid-19 inoculates as the nationwide first round vaccination campaign was underway and in case of unavailability of the jabs from outside, Bangladesh itself would produce the vaccines.
She was addressing a press conference joining virtually from her Ganabhaban residence in the capital marking the United Nation’s final recommendation regarding Bangladesh’s graduation to a developing country from the LDC one, local media reported.
Asked when she herself would receive the jab, Sheikh Hasina said she will certainly receive vaccine but before that she wanted to bring a certain number of people under the inoculation coverage.
Bangladesh received its first ever Covid-19 vaccine consignment on Jan 21 as India sent 20 lakh doses of vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca as gift.
Bangladesh has so far gotten 70 lakh vaccine doses as part of a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on Nov 5 and a subsequent agreement on Dec 13 among Bangladesh Government, Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd and the Serum Institute of India.
The country has so far collected 90 lakh vaccines.
The agreement ensures availability of three crore Covid-19 vaccine doses by June this year from the Serum Institute of India.
Bangladesh eventually is expected to get 68 million or 6.80 crore vaccines for 20 percent of its population or 3.40 crore people from the WHO, COVAX facility.
As of Feb 27, the number of vaccine receivers is 29,84,773 as the countrywide vaccination campaign was launched on Feb 7. Of them 19,37,026 are male and 10,47,747 female.
