Students of public and private universities will get Covid-19 vaccines on priority once they are available, Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque said yesterday.
To keep the Covid-19 transmission situation under control, around five crore people need to be vaccinated against Covid-19, he said while talking to journalists after cabinet meeting.
"After agreement, we will receive [Chinese vaccines] throughout June, July and August -- 50 lakh in each month. At the beginning, we will inoculate college and university students on a priority basis. We want them [students] to start normal study after being vaccinated," Zahid said.
"We have ordered 1.5 crore shots of vaccines from China. That means, we can inoculate 75 lakh people [with these vaccines]. We will receive the equal amount [of vaccines] from Russia too."
Last week, the government approved the procurement of 1.5 core doses of Sinopharm vaccine named as BBIBP-CorV, produced by a Chinese government company.
Earlier, the drug administration has issued emergency use authorisation to this Chinese vaccine.
Already, the government has started inoculating medical students with five lakh doses of Sinopharm vaccines that the Chinese government has sent as gift.
Health officials said they were now waiting to sign the procurement agreement to get 1.5 crore doses of Sinopharm vaccine in phases -- possibly starting from this month.
The minister added that they will also use Pfizer vaccines to inoculate students as per the procedure. "There has been a discussion with the prime minister about Pfizer vaccine … We will follow the chronology; if students become eligible, we will also give them Pfizer vaccine."
"We will give more attention on whether the educational activity can start as early as possible. Besides students, others will also get vaccine." Zahid said.
The minister said the government's target is to vaccinate at least five crore people as soon as possible.
"If five crore people are vaccinated, our country will be safe as it will cover the all vulnerable groups," he said.
Zahid said they would resume the Covid-19 vaccine registration process once they get enough shots in hand.
The health minister also spoke about the progress of procuring Russia's Sputnik V vaccine.
Zahid said they are in the final stage to sign the agreement. "We hope we will get vaccines from Russia early."
"We will get the Russian vaccine through G2G process. We have also requested them for co-production ... It would take time. We have to ensure infrastructural facility before vaccine production."
About the Covishield vaccine from Serum Institute of India, the minister said, "We are also stressing on Serum vaccine. We have discussed with the Indian government [as well as] the Indian high commissioner. We have made payment. So, we told them to give us vaccine soon."
PFIZER SHOTS ARRIVE
The first consignment of 106,000 doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine arrived last night in Bangladesh under the global vaccine-sharing initiative COVAX.
Md Shamsul Haque, a line director at the Directorate General of Health Services, told The Daily Star they were processing to take those vaccines to the government designated warehouses. Health department officials recieved the vaccine at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport and from there those were taken to government vaccine storage centres.
The Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) on May 27 approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine. Bangladesh is expected to receive 68 million doses of Covid vaccines from COVAX.
