UNB :
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said that the government has taken steps to get over 10 million Covid-19 vaccine jabs every month.
The premier said that as per the schedule, Bangladesh will get 20 million doses every month from Sinopharm from next October.
She made the statement while answering a tabled question from ruling party MP Shahiduzzaman Sarker during the prime minister’s question-answer session in parliament.
As of now, some 18,289,018 persons got the first jab of the vaccine while 7,840,169 persons got the second jab, taking the total number to 26,129,187.
“Collection of vaccines is on while providing the shots free to the people,” she said.
The premier said that the government has established contacts with all vaccine producing organizations.
“Of them, we got a response from the Serum Institute of India and booked 30,000,000 doses of vaccines with advance payment,” she said.
She also mentioned that there was no response from other vaccine producing companies.
“Later, Sinopharm and Sputnik-V gave responses; we took initiative as soon as we got their response. We have inked an agreement with Sinopharm and also signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for local production,” she said.
Responding to a question from Shamim Haider Patwari from Jatiya Party, the prime minister said that the government has taken a move for a permanent solution to river erosion.
The Delta Plan 2100 has been taken for overall river management, water supply in urban and rural areas, waste management and flood control apart from flood protection, control river erosion, river training and maintain navigability.
She mentioned that in this plan the whole country has been divided into seven river basins and surveys are going on.
The surveys in Karnaphuli, Sangu and Matamuhiri rivers have been completed.
She said that besides increasing the capability of water flow, through taking steps to maintain sustainability in the rivers and follow appropriate siltation management strategy it will be possible to attain desired sustainable development by reducing flood risk and protecting river erosion in the erosion-prone areas.
Replying to Mahfuzur Rahman the premier said that in the last four years the demand for sacrificial animals in the country was made possible through domestic production by various government steps.
She said that during the Eid-ul-Azha the number of available animals was around 11,916,700 while 9,093,242 were actually sacrificed.
“That means around 2,800,000 animals remained surplus,” she added.
She also mentioned that in the last 12 years milk production increased five times while egg production four times in the country.
