With over 9.79 million doses of the Covishield vaccine administered, Bangladesh now has a stock of a little over 500,000 doses of the shots of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
According to figures released by the health authorities on Saturday, a total of 9,792,130 doses have been administered out of the 10.3 million doses received. That leaves the country with 507,870 shots.
As many as 5,819,912 people have taken the first dose of the vaccine so far while 3,972,218 people received the second shot.
Bangladesh, from the SII deal, has so far received seven million doses out of 30 million promised.
However, the country also received 3.3 million vaccine jabs as gift from the Indian government.
Due to this supply crisis, the fate of 1,339,824 people, waiting to get their second vaccine jab, now hangs in balance.
On Saturday alone, 41,467 people took the second dose of the vaccine, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
To make matters worse, DGHS is yet to provide any information regarding the number of vaccines that got wasted amid the ongoing inoculation program.
The second dose provided to these people must also be the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, since the World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet made a decision on taking two doses from two different companies.
The nationwide Covid-19 vaccination program started on February 7 in the country. However, due to the shortage of vaccines, the DGHS decided to stop administering the first dose from April 28. Registration for the vaccine then closed on May 2.
On Sunday, Bangladesh reported 1,354 new cases of coronavirus infection, taking the tally to 789,080.
The death toll rose by 28 in a 24-hour count to 12,376, according to the government data.
Another 899 people recovered from the illness through treatment at home and in hospital care, bringing the tally of recoveries to 730,697.
As many as 15,205 samples were tested across the country in the last 24 hours, yielding a positivity rate of 8.9%.
