Dhaka receives 5.6 million Sinopharm vaccine doses

Around 5.6 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine arrived in Dhaka from China early Tuesday, reports UNB.

A Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight carrying 5,593,650 doses of the vaccine landed at Shahjalal International Airport around 2:10 am, said line director of the directorate general of Health Services (DGHS) and director of vaccination programme Shamsul Haq.

He said the vaccine doses were procured from China and special arrangements have been made for their preservation.

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.

Till now, 13.5 million Sinopharm vaccines have arrived from China. Of them, 1.1 million shots were received under the COVAX facility.

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

The government has administered at least 26,129,187 doses of Covid vaccines – enough to have vaccinated around 7.8 per cent of the country’s population, assuming every person needs two doses.

Bangladesh has administered 9,842,979 shots of Sinopharm as the first dose and 1,837,817 as the second dose so far.