The government has decided to procure 60 million Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine jabs from China to ramp up its inoculation efforts.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque made the announcement during the inauguration of a Covid-19 field hospital at the Bangamata Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib Convention Hall on Saturday.
Of these vaccines, 20 million will arrive in Bangladesh in October while more 20 million will come in November, he added.
The minister said that the rest of the jabs will arrive in phases provided that the Chinese company keeps its promise.
Till now, Bangladesh has received seven million Sinopharm vaccine doses under a purchase agreement of 30 million.
Besides, China sent 1.1 million Sinopharm doses as a gift in two consignments in July.
Bangladesh initially signed a deal to purchase 15 million doses of vaccines from Sinopharm, which was expected to be delivered within three months. After receiving the first consignment, the government struck another deal for 15 million vaccines.
Vaccination progress
So far, till Friday, around 4.34 million people have received the second dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, while about 1.47 million have only received the first dose and are awaiting the second one.
Moreover, 193,448 people received their first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine in the last 24 hours, taking the total to over 3.317 million, while another 12,855 people received their second jab of the Chinese vaccine.
Additionally, another 1,662 people received their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, taking the count to 7,038.
As many as 50,255 people have been administered the first dose of the vaccine.
Besides, 86,386 more people received the first dose of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine, taking the total to over 1.101 million.
Bangladesh reported its first three cases of Covid-19, a severe acute respiratory illness caused by a strain of coronavirus later named Sars-CoV-2, on March 8 last year.
The fast-spreading coronavirus has claimed more than 4,290,000 lives and infected over 202,447,000 people across the world till Saturday afternoon, according to Worldometer.
More than 181,945,000 million people have recovered from the disease, which has affected 220 countries and territories across the planet.
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