China to send 600,000 more doses of Sinopharm COVID vaccine to Bangladesh as gift

China is going to send another 600,000 doses of the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine to Bangladesh as gift at the request of the government.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen asked for the doses in a phone conversation with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Friday evening, the Chinese Embassy in Dhaka said in a statement.

Nine days ago, China sent the first batch of 500,000 doses, which “fully reflects that China attaches great importance to the friendly relations between the two countries”, the statement said.

“China pays close attention to the latest situation of the epidemic in Bangladesh,” the embassy said.

“At the critical time point in Bangladesh's fight against the epidemic, China is concerned about the urgent need for vaccine of Bangladeshi friends and overcomes the huge demand for domestic and foreign orders and the shortage of vaccine supply.”

It also hoped that the second batch of Chinese gift vaccine will “definitely” help Bangladeshi build a strong line of defence against the epidemic.

In the future, China is willing to provide the necessary support for Bangladesh and South Asian countries to fight the epidemic, deepen anti-epidemic cooperation with Bangladesh, and effectively protect the health and life safety of the people of the two countries, it added.

 

India froze export of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine  to tackle its own devastating crisis, forcing Bangladesh to purchase vaccines from China and Russia.

The government on Wednesday approved a proposal to buy the vaccine from Chinese state company Sinopharm on an emergency basis to tackle a supply crunch.

Chinese Ambassador Li Jiming, however, said Bangladesh “better not expect” commercial supply of the vaccine before December because “the queue is too long”.

The Directorate General of Drug Administration or DGDA approved the vaccine for emergency use on Apr 29. The government is expected to begin administering the first batch of gift shots next week.

The vaccine, one of two main Chinese coronavirus vaccines that have been given to hundreds of millions of people in China and elsewhere, is the first developed by a non-Western country to win the backing of the World Health Organization.