5.4m more Sinopharm doses to arrive Saturday

Another 5.4 million (54 lakh) doses of the Sinophamrm vaccine are scheduled to reach Dhaka from China early Saturday, reports UNB.

This consignment of vaccine doses is part of the commercial purchase from China, said deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy in Dhaka Hualong Yan.

As a strategic partner of Bangladesh, China will always remain the most reliable supplier whatever and whenever the country needs, he said.

Bangladesh has so far received Sinopharm vaccine doses from China as a gift, under COVAX facility, and commercial purchase.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina recently told the parliament that the government had made arrangements to get more than 10 million (1 crore) doses of Covid-19 vaccines every month.

According to the schedule received from Sinopharm, 20 million (2 crore) shots will be available every month from October onwards and 60 million (6 crore) by December, she added.

On 16 August, Bangladesh, China and Incepta Vaccine Limited signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the coproduction of Sinopharm vaccine in Bangladesh.

China has provided 2.1 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine as a gift to Bangladesh, 3.4 million doses under the COVAX facility, and 8 million doses as part of an arrangement of a large-scale commercial purchase so far.

Bangladesh is now administering vaccines developed by four companies – AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Sinopharm.

The government has administered at least 33,699,773 doses of Covid vaccines – enough to have vaccinated around 10 per cent of the country's population, assuming every person needs two doses.

Bangladesh has administered 10,990,721 shots of Sinopharm as the first dose and 5,784,265 as the second dose so far.

Since the start of the Covid pandemic, the country has recorded 1,527,215 infections and 26,832 deaths, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.

The Covid vaccines cannot offer 100 per cent protection but when more people are jabbed there is less opportunity for the virus to infect and spread.

Getting vaccinated prevents severe illness, hospitalisations, and death; and with the Delta variant; this is more urgent than ever, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.