News Desk :
Bangladesh on Tuesday received another 1.7 million doses of Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine from China under the Covax facility as the government continues its efforts to speed up the nationwide vaccination drive.
This is the first consignment, among the three, scheduled to be arrived from China this week.
Officials of the Health Ministry received the consignment at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airpory at 7:15pm, said Shahriar Sazzad, chief of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) unit at the airport.
The next consignment carrying the same amount of Sinopharm vaccine is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday, he added.
The third consignment that carrying Sinopharm vaccine will arrive on Thursday, the official confirmed.
He, however, could not confirm whether the third consignment is part of Covax scheme as well or not.
Earlier, Chinese Embassy Deputy Chief Mission Hualong Yan in a Facebook post said the vaccine consignment left Beijing for Dhaka in the morning. “We’ll be coming soon for vaccine co-producing,” he wrote.
With the latest numbers, Bangladesh now have received 9.8 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine.
The country received seven million doses from China as purchased vaccines. Besides, China also sent 1.1 million Sinopharm doses as a gift to Bangladesh in two consignments in July.
Earlier, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said Bangladesh is set to receive another 5.4 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine by August 15.
Moreover, Bangladesh will procure a total of 60 million Sinopharm jabs from China, including the previously purchased 30 million doses.
On July 8, Bangladesh resumed its mass vaccination program against Covid-19 after a hiatus caused by low supply of vaccine doses.
The country is now administering vaccine doses developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Pfizer, and Moderna.
According to the foreign minister, Russia agreed to go into co-production of its Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine in Bangladesh, besides exporting the jabs.
