Bangladesh will get 5m COVID vaccine doses from Serum in second batch: official

Bangladesh will get five million doses of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine in the second batch from the Serum Institute of India as per the deal, the health secretary says.

Speaking to reporters at the Secretariat in Dhaka on Wednesday, Abdul Mannan said the second instalment of COVID-19 shots will arrive by the end of February or the first week of March.

There will be no problem in distributing the doses because the government has decided to extend the interval between the first shot and the booster to eight weeks from four weeks. 

“We will be able to conduct the vaccination drive in an orderly fashion because we have time,” he said.

Serum, the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, is supplying 30 million doses of the vaccine, COVISHIELD, to Bangladesh. Beximco Pharmaceuticals is the exclusive distributor of the vaccine in Bangladesh.

Besides two million doses as gift from the Indian government, Serum sent five million doses last month in the first batch of the import.

Earlier, Beximco Pharma Managing Director Nazmul Hassan had said the second batch would be smaller, of two to three million doses, and they were expected to arrive on Feb 22. 

But Secretary Mannan said there was no concern about getting five million doses in the second batch.

He said the government has no plans to lower the age bar for vaccination below 40 years.

“We want to continue this until June or July in a disciplined and festive manner,” Mannan said.

Around 50,000 health workers in 1,010 hospitals are administering the doses in the country, according to him.

The number of vaccination booths is being increased where necessary, including the Secretariat Clinic, “to stop vaccine doses being wasted”, Mannan said.

Information Minister Hasan Mahmud took his first dose of the vaccine at the clinic on Wednesday.

A diabetic, Mahmud said, “Insulin injections can be felt slightly, but nothing like that happened today when I took the vaccine.”

He also slated those who spread disinformation about the vaccine.