Bangladesh to receive 240m Covid jabs by March-April: Momen

Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen on Wednesday sounded hopeful regarding procurement of Covid-19 jabs, saying Bangladesh is on track to get 240 million vaccines by March-April next year, reports news agency UNB.

"Vaccine doses are coming under the COVAX facility, as gifts and from other sources," the foreign minister told reporters on the sidelines of the 'Fifth International Conference on Inclusive Business' organised by the Dutch-Bangla Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DBCCI) in Dhaka.

Momen said that Bangladesh needs 260 million vaccine doses and some jabs would be produced at home too. "However, here is no update on vaccine cooperation with Russia due to the Covid-19 situation there."

Momen said that half of the 160 million people are young, while 22.2 million people have already been vaccinated.

"Despite significant vaccination in Bangladesh, the United Kingdom kept Bangladesh in the red list which is very unfortunate," he said.

Earlier, Momen reiterated Bangladesh’s call to remove the country from the red list, terming the British government's decision as "unfair and discriminatory".

"It's unfair and it's discrimination (to Bangladesh)," he said, while talking to a small group of newsmen at his office on Monday.

Referring to sufferings of more than 7,000 British-Bangladeshis currently stranded in Bangladesh, Momen said the UK government is doing disservice to its own citizens.

"The UK government gave an argument that the vaccination rate is low in Bangladesh, but Bangladesh says that the UK is allowing people from other countries having lower vaccination rate," he added.