Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The government has stepped up its Covid-19 vaccine purchase effort by allocating Tk 1110.20 crore fund afresh in favour of the health ministry for procuring vaccine shots from Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm.
The fund will go towards advance payment for 20 million doses of the Sars-Cov-2 Vaccine (Vero Cell, Inactivated), manufactured Beijing Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd, according to an official letter issued by the ministry of health on September 26.
The letter cited that the money will be provided from the Tk 10,000 crore ‘special fund’ allocated in the current fiscal year’s budget.
The government earlier signed a contract with Sinopharm to procure 60 million doses of Covid -19 vaccine and a substantial amount of the contract money has been paid to the manufacturer, said a health ministry official.
Bangladesh has so far received 20 million doses of Sinopharm vaccines and the rest 40 million doses are scheduled to be delivered in October and November, 2021.
The health ministry official said the government has been successfully moving ahead to implement the “National Deployment and Vaccination Plan for Covid-19” to vaccinate all eligible citizens by 2022. So far, it has been able to confirm 250 million doses of vaccines from various sources, all of which have WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL).
“Major sources of vaccines are bilateral contracts with the manufacturers and contract through GAVI COVAX AMC with cost sharing facility,” said the health ministry official.
The government has already approved 7 vaccines–Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, Sputnik V, Johnson & Johnson, Covishield (Oxford/AstraZeneca formulation), Sinopharm and Sinovac of China– for use in Bangladesh.
“The government has adequate fund to procure Covid-19 vaccine doses. The finance ministry is releasing fund as soon as it gets requisition from the health ministry,” a senior finance ministry official told The New Nation yesterday requesting anonymity.
Bangladesh launched a nationwide vaccination drive on February. 7 with Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
In November last year, Bangladesh signed a deal with the SII to buy 30 million doses of coronavirus vaccine, developed by British drug maker AstraZeneca.
But India halted export of Covid vaccine in March this year, after SII supplied 7 million AstraZeneca jabs to inoculate its own population amid a worsening pandemic situation in the country.
