Bangladesh will receive 100,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 in May through the Covax mechanism, a spokesperson of the health directorate has said.
Covax or COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access is a global initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and the World Health Organization.
It pools vaccines from the producing countries to distribute to the poor and low income countries.
Dr Robed Amin, spokesperson for the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), at the regular briefing said talks are underway to get vaccines from different sources.
“We’ll get 100,000 doses Pfizer vaccine under Covax mechanism,” he said.
Bangladesh is using Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine made in Serum Institute of India. But the supply has been stopped due to low production.
Robed Amin said they had asked the Beximco Pharmaceuticals which is the local supplier of Serum to procure at least 2 million doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum to complete the second doses to those who have taken the first dose.
The DGHS stopped giving the first dose from Monday.
The Chinese government has informed that it will gift 600,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine to Bangladesh soon.
India, earlier, offered Bangladesh to produce Covaxin here in Dhaka. The Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is comparable with Oxford’s vaccine in terms of efficacy.
