Agreement with China for co-production of vaccine any moment: Foreign minister

Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen on Thursday said the government has ordered 75 million (7.5 crore) doses of Chinese Sinopharm Covid vaccine to purchase while already made the payment of 15 million doses out of it, reports BSS.

“We ordered 75 million doses Sinopharm (vaccine) ... and we have already sent money for 15 million doses out of these,” he told media at State Guest House Padma in the capital.

Apart from purchasing vaccine, the foreign minister said that Dhaka would receive 34 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine next week and one million more doses of AstraZeneca vaccine later this month under COVAX framework.

Besides, he said, Bangladesh is scheduled to get six million more doses of Pfizer vaccine in the first week of September under the COVAX as well.

COVAX, a global alliance, is a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines directed by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

“We have made a good line up of vaccine .... (as) we would like to make at least half of our population vaccinated,” he said, adding that currently the health ministry has 12.3 million (1.23 crore) doses of different kinds of Covid vaccine.

Saying that vaccine co-production is very crucial to fulfil the government’s target to vaccinate most of the people, Momen announced that the tentative agreement over vaccine co-production with China would be signed anytime for the production of its Sinopharm Covid vaccine with a local pharmaceutical.

“They (China) sent the draft of the agreement on 16 July. We have forwarded it (the draft MoU) right way to the health ministry,” Momen said.

Mentioning that the law ministry also vetted the draft agreement, Momen said, “Everything (MoU) is fine ... they can sign (the agreement) any minute.”