Bangladesh receives another 2m doses of COVID vaccine

A second shipment of 2 million doses of a vaccine against the coronavirus has reached Bangladesh.

A SpiceJet flight from Mumbai arrived with the vaccine at Dhaka's Shahjalal International Airport around 12:15am Tuesday.

With the latest shipment, a total of 9 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India have been handed over to Bangladesh.

Serum, the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, is supplying 30 million doses of the vaccine, developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, to 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.

People need to take two doses of the Oxford vaccine, COVISHIELD, with a booster shot eight to 12 weeks after the first.

Beximco Pharma, the sole distributor of the vaccine in Bangladesh, had planned to bring a separate shipment from the Serum Institute for private sale, but the company halted the plan because Bangladesh received enough shots through the government channel.

Besides the doses purchased from Serum, Bangladesh is expected to get around 12.8 million COVISHIELD doses in the first half of 2021 under COVAX, the World Health Organization-led scheme.