The health authorities expect to receive another five million doses of Covishield vaccines from India on March 26.
This will be the third consignment in the six-instalment delivery agreement between Bangladesh’s Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd and India’s Serum Institute.
Abdul Mannan, secretary of Health Service Division under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, made the disclosure while speaking to reporters after the inauguration of a new building of the Central Medical Stores Depot on Sunday.
“Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Bangladesh on March 26. I think the third consignment of the purchased vaccine – five million doses in total – will arrive along with him. If not then, we will get them by the first week of April,” he said.
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Beximco Pharma, on behalf of the Bangladesh government, is acquiring Covishield, the Covid-19 vaccine originally developed by UK’s Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. Per the agreement, Bangladesh will get 30 million doses in total from Serum, to be delivered in five-million instalments over six months.
So far, Bangladesh has received two shipments of the vaccine doses.
On January 25, Bangladesh received the first consignment of five million doses of the vaccine from Serum Institute.
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However, earlier on January 21, India sent an additional two million doses of Covid-19 vaccines as a gift to Bangladesh.
The second batch arrived on February 23, but it contained only two million doses, instead of the previously-agreed-up five, because Serum is prioritizing the local demand before sending out the vaccine doses to other countries, their CEO Adar Poonawalla said.
Since the dry run of the vaccination was launched in Bangladesh on January 27, as many as 4.8 million people have received the first dose of the vaccine in Bangladesh till date.
