A report published in The New Nation on Tuesday broke allegation of lack of transparency in the deal for buying Covid-19 vaccine from Serum Institute of India under a contract between the governments of Bangladesh and India and yet Beximco claims to be the third party having obtained the business right from Serum India. On January 25 the first consignment of 5 million vaccine doses out of 30 million reached Dhaka and Beximco representative stored those at their Gazipur warehouse. Bangladesh government paid US $ 120 million in advance for importing the vaccines at a cost $4 per dose while the Indian government is buying the same at $2.73 a dose from Serum to show Bangladesh is paying 47 percent higher for the humanitarian drug from our close friend plus $1 extra for Beximco.
While a big question of conflict of interest is now dominating debate, Beximco is planning to sell the vaccine at a cost of $13.27 per dose which is taka 1125 in local currency although it should not have been more than Tk 550 based on even higher buying costs. Moreover mystery is shrouding over 20 million vaccine doses India claims to have gifted to Bangladesh. Its purpose is allegedly mainly to run test trial as the vaccine is not yet authorized by a WHO certification. It appears the Indian government is using Bangladesh people as guinea pigs in the cover of gift without prior anti-body test and tolerance test against a large population sample. As it appears our health authorities are asking people not to pay heed rumors about possible risk while it started vaccination without setting up health screening centers at districts and upazilas to monitor possible reactions.
Bangladesh is facing the second wave of Covid-19 with looming threat to human life while there is a growing allegation that the government is suppressing the fatalities at a time when number of unreported deaths is running higher than the reported deaths. Our health authorities are pretending that the situation is under control. The government has opened the inoculation mainly in some public hospitals while Beximco’s main thrust is to sell the vaccine at retail price from open market shops. We don’t understand how the government could allow a party MP to take the business. It is a betrayal to public interest.
