AS the country is facing the heaviest daily casualty of coronavirus pandemic — both in terms of the death toll and new infections, the foreign minister is busy now looking for new sources of vaccine while the health minister is nowhere on the scene. The foreign minister told the media on Tuesday that the government has already made a good lineup of buying more vaccine doses from different sources on commercial purchase to ensure a steady supply of the jabs. As per the minister’s disclosure, Japan government and European Union have agreed to supply 2.5 million and 1.0 million jabs respectively and these would reach the country this month.
Early this month the country also got 2.5 million doses of Moderna vaccines as a US gift and 2 million Chinese Sinopharm vaccines which Bangladesh has purchased. Washington would send more while Dhaka is actively engaged with Russia and China to buy vaccines. As per his disclosure, the supply of 23 million vaccines by the Serum Institute of India may come later as India is facing a severe pandemic and we have to wait despite the fact that Dhaka paid in advance for the jab. We need more than 100 million doses immediately to inoculate a majority of people but begging for vaccines from door to door is a disgrace. When China and Russia offered we turned those down in favour of Indian supply. But the nation is now paying heavily as migrant workers are languishing for vaccination before leaving the country while students are to get it on a priority basis but the common people are in the dark.
We would say we have no time to delay the nationwide vaccination but the scheme is nowhere visible except on TV demonstration. We have very limited hospital facilities and oxygen supply that need to be significantly improved but our health management is at breaking point given the rush of covid patients at hospitals. We can’t sit helplessly at this moment without any comprehensive plan to tackle the pandemic. We fear the government figures about the dead might partial because the dead outside government hospitals are not counted.
