The government has received positive indications from a number of countries regarding the supplies of more vaccine doses to Bangladesh, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has said.
“There is nothing to be worried about. There will be plenty of vaccines. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has kept [aside] adequate funds for purchasing vaccines,” he told reporters at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Friday night.
Bangladesh received 2.5 million doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine under the Covax facility and two million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine commercially purchased from China on Friday night and Saturday morning.
Dr Momen said the situation has stabilized as these vaccines from two sources came at a very critical time.
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He thanked expatriate Bangladeshis in the US who started a campaign for ensuring vaccine doses for Bangladesh. "It helped us."
Dr Momen also thanked US President Joe Biden and US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl R Miller, saying President Biden has kept his words.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque said the vaccination program in the country will be expedited with the arrival of 4.5 million vaccine doses in the country.
He said the government is in discussions with a number of countries to get AstraZeneca vaccine doses and the foreign minister is helping them in many ways. “We have got a positive indication from those countries that they will give us AstraZeneca [vaccine].”
The health minister also said they got indications from India too that they will start supplying AstraZeneca doses from August. “Hope we will get that timely and people will be able to get their second dose [of the vaccine].”
On the issue of supply of vaccines abroad, official spokesperson of Indian Ministry of External Affairs Arindam Bagchi reiterated that currently India’s priority remains on domestic production to domestic vaccination, which is progressing rapidly.
“I have said earlier, the government is making all-out efforts to augment vaccine availability in the country, be it through domestic production or imports,” he said in the latest regular briefing in New Delhi.
The health minister thanked the US government for the gift through Covax and hoped to get more vaccines from the US.
The United States’ gift from the American people of 2.5 million doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine to Bangladesh was delivered via Covax.
The United States said it is committed to leading the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic and this summer, it will begin allocating the 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine it is providing to GAVI for distribution by Covax to countries around the world.