The Bangladesh government signed an MoU with Pune-based SII and Bexmico Pharmaceuticals on November 5th to procure 30 million doses of ‘Covishield’. The Covid-19 vaccine candidate is being developed by the University of Oxford in collaboration with AstraZeneca and the Serum Institute of India (SII).
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to that effect was signed by officials from Bangladesh’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, SII and Bexmico Pharmaceuticals in Dhaka on Thursday. The MoU talks about 30 million doses of the University of Oxford’s coronavirus vaccine candidate ‘Covishield’ for Bangladesh.
But unfortunately the vaccine only shows 50 percent efficiency. The first effective coronavirus vaccine can prevent more than 90% of people from getting Covid-19, a preliminary analysis shows. The developers – Pfizer and BioNTech – described it as a “great day for science and humanity”. Their vaccine has been tested on 43,500 people in six countries and no safety concerns have been raised. The companies plan to apply for emergency approval to use the vaccine by the end of the month. The UK should get 10 million doses by the end of the year, with a further 30 million doses already ordered.
So we can see that the vaccine which we will end up using in Bangladesh is not as effective as the vaccine developed by Pfizer. It therefore stands to reason that the MoU for a vaccine which is only 50 percent effective in the first place cannot be meaning. Even the birthplace of the vaccine — the UK, is getting 40 million doses from the US company Pfizer as it does not feel safe to rely on the Oxford vaccine.
So if the country of origin of the Oxford vaccine is, instead relying on the Oxford vaccine there is no reason as to why we should rely on it as well. The MoU should be immediately rescinded and a new one signed with Pfizer to get the doses.
Even the amount of doses is small — only thirty million. With a population of 170 million we would need about 340 million doses to get everyone immunized. So it seems that the administration is only thinking of the upper ten percent of the population to have access to the vaccine — even if they double the initial dose it would only mean that less than a fifth of the population would get access to the vaccine in the first place. The administration should think about vaccinating the entire populace and not just about the tiny minority at the top of the ladder.
