Bangladesh to get another 6m Pfizer doses in early September: minister

Bangladesh is expected to receive another 6 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine under the global vaccine-sharing initiative COVAX in the first week of September.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 5 August 2021, 03:12 PM
Updated : 5 August 2021, 03:12 PM

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen made the revelation on Thursday while assuring that Bangladesh has the facilities to store the vaccine.

"The only thing they wanted to know was whether we have the storage capabilities for the vaccine. I have spoken to the health minister and confirmed that we have made the necessary arrangements. So these will come.”

Earlier on May 31, Bangladesh received a consignment of 106,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine under the programme co-led by the World Health Organization and global vaccine alliance GAVI. The first doses of the vaccine were administered in a dry run at three hospitals in Dhaka on Jun 21.

The Pfizer vaccine must be stored between -90 degrees Celsius and -60 degrees Celsius. It can also be refrigerated at 2 degrees Celsius to 5 degrees Celsius for five days. At 30 degrees Celsius, the vaccine will be valid for two hours.

Due to the storage-related complexities, the vaccine was administered in Dhaka alone.

File Photo

The health directorate at the time said it had the capacity to store two million doses of Pfizer vaccine. If the capacity is increased, another 1 million doses of the vaccine could be preserved.

The South Asian nation is poised to add another 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to its stocks next week followed by the arrival of 3.4 million Sinopharm jabs later this month, according to Momen.

Bangladesh began its mass COVID vaccination drive with AstraZeneca shots from the Serum Institute of India in February.

The country reached an agreement with the organisation for the purchase of 30 million doses, but, after the first 7 million doses arrived, India halted exports as it struggled to deal with the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus. The Indian government had also sent 3.2 million doses as gifts before shipments were cut off.

Bangladesh then turned to China to procure more vaccines. It also received shipments of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines under the COVAX programme.

The government resumed administering the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday after a long delay due to shortages. As of Aug 1, more than 1.52 million people were waiting to get their second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to government data.

"We have ordered 75 million doses from Sinopharm. We have already paid for 15 million jabs. We are working on getting the remaining 60 million doses.”

The talks to co-produce the Chinese vaccine in Bangladesh among the government, Incepta Pharmaceuticals and Sinopharm are advancing and a deal could be struck 'at any time', he added.

"They sent us (the draft agreement) on Jul 16. We passed it on to the health ministry. They sent it to the law ministry, who sent the vetted agreement back the next day. Everything is in order and the agreement could be signed any time."