Another 2.5 million (25 lakh) doses of the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 arrived in Dhaka early Tuesday morning under the COVAX initiative, reports UNB.
A cargo flight of National Airlines, carrying the vaccine doses gifted by the US, landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 5:00am, health ministry officials said.
Senior officials of the ministry, the health department, Central Medical Stores Depot and the airport authorities were present to receive the delivery of the jabs.
“Pleased to announce the arrival of another 2.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccine,” said US ambassador to Bangladesh Earl R Miller.
This brings the total US vaccine donation to nine million, with more on the way very soon, he said.
These are a gift from the USA to Bangladesh, said the envoy.
“Alongside $96 million, continue to stand together to fight Covid-19,” he said.
Earlier, Bangladesh received over 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the first phase and another one million doses in the second phase from the US.
With the arrival of the fresh batch, Bangladesh has received a total of 3.6 million (36.04 lakh) doses of the vaccine to date.
So far, the country has received 49.4 million (4.94 crore) doses of AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and Moderna vaccines under the COVAX facility.
According to the health ministry, some 2,48,80,898 people got their first Covid shot while 1,64,99,866 were administered the second dose until 27 September.
Besides, a process to import some 20 million (2 crore) doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine each month is underway.
Apart from this, process to procure 240 million (24 crore) doses of the vaccine through the World Health Organisation is going on.
Bangladesh started administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at three centres in Dhaka to fight off Covid-19 on 24 June.
The US has said that it is committed to leading the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic and that it will begin this summer the allocation of 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine it is providing to Gavi for distribution by COVAX to countries around the world.
US president Joe Biden reaffirmed this commitment by announcing that his country will donate 80 million doses of vaccines to support global needs.
The US is working with its G7 partners, the EU, COVAX and others in a multilateral effort focused on saving lives, ending the pandemic, and supporting the global economic recovery.