Bangladesh will get next vaccine batch on Mar 26 or later: health secretary

The Serum Institute of India is likely to send over the next shipment of Oxford-AstraZenca COVID-19 vaccine on Mar 26 or a bit later, Health Secretary Md Abdul Mannan has said.

“Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Bangladesh on Mar 26, and I think we will get the March shipment of the vaccines from Serum Institute during his trip or immediately afterwards,” he said.

“We are very hopeful,” Secretary Mannan said after the inauguration of a new building of Central Medical Stores Depot on Sunday.

“The March shipment could also arrive in the first week of April as far as we know,” he added.

Bangladesh has already received seven million of the 30 million doses for which the government had struck a deal in November last year.

In January, India presented Bangladesh with an additional two million doses produced by Serum Institute as a goodwill gesture before sending over the first shipment of the vaccine, which is being marketed as COVISHIELD.

Bangladesh launched a nationwide mass vaccination drive on Feb 7 after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the programme in a small testing phase at the end of January.

So far around 4.8 million people - less than three percent of the country’s population - have received their first shots.

According to the agreement, Bangladesh was supposed to receive five million doses every month.

However, it received two million doses in February while the whole world went through a vaccine crisis.

The largest vaccine producer in the world, Serum Institute is producing 2.4 million Oxford-AstraZeneca doses per day.

However, their first priority is producing enough shots for India. They are shipping vaccines to Brazil, Morocco and South Africa.

In a statement, Serum Institute has said their production has been hampered by an

issue with the supply of raw materials.