Bangladesh likely to resume second dose AstraZeneca jab in 2 days

The recipients of the first dose of Indian Covishield, also known as Oxford-AstraZeneca, will start getting their second dose in a day or two, health minister Zahid Maleque said on Saturday.

He said this after receiving a consignment of 7,81,320 AstraZeneca vaccine doses produced and sent by Japan at Hazrat Shahjala International Airport in Dhaka.

The government has now  a stock of over 11 lakh doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, mostly provided by Japan as a gift, according to the Directorate General of Health Services officials.

Another consignment of over six lakh doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine is likely to arrive in Dhaka on August 3.

Over 15.2 lakh recipients of the first dose of the Indian Covishield could not receive their second dose as the government stopped administering the vaccine in many centres across the country amid shortage of the vaccine in the middle of May.

Serum Institute of India, which was paid by Bangladesh for 1.5 crore doses of the vaccine out of a total of three crore doses it had committed to deliver, stopped supplying the vaccine in violation of the contract after delivering only 70 lakh doses of the vaccine.

Japan agreed to provide over 30 lakh doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine after the Bangladesh government approached various countries, including Japan, the UK and USA, for providing the AstraZeneca vaccine for overcoming the crisis.

The government decided to launch a mass campaign at union parishad-level across the country from August 7 for administering Covid vaccine as thousands of people continued to complete registrations for receiving the vaccine every day.

The government has a plan to administer about one crore doses of vaccine in a week through 13,800 vaccination centres with prioritising the senior citizens, the health minister said.

DGHS director general Proffessor Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam said that the department was conducting training sessions involving the staff of the expanded programme for immunisation maintaining cold chain for quality inoculation across the country.

 

Over 11.7 lakh people completed their registration across the country, in the 48 hours till 2.30pm on Saturday, for vaccination, taking the total number of registrants to about 1.51 crore since the launch of the inoculation campaign in February 2021, according to a DGHS press release.

Among the registrants, about 85 lakh people have received the first jab and over 43.2 lakh both doses while at least 1.29 crore doses have been administered across the country till 2.30pm on Saturday.

In an effort to diversify the sources of Covid vaccine procurement for bringing about 80 per cent of about 17 crore people under vaccine coverage, the Bangladesh government has so far approved seven vaccines. They are Indian Covishield, also known as Oxford-AstraZeneca, Moderna of the United States, Sinopharm and Coronavac/Sinovac of China, Sputnik V of Russia, Comirnaty of Pfizer of the United States and Janssen of Belgium.

In addition to signing a purchase agreement with serum of India, Bangladesh has also signed a contract for purchasing about three crore doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China. 

As of Saturday, the country has received about 1.2 crore doses of the Indian Covishield vaccine, including 32 lakh doses as a gift from the Indian government, 10.3 lakh AstraZeneca doses as a gift from Japan, 55 lakh Moderna doses and 1.06 lakh Pfizer doses as a gift from the USA and 81 lakh doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, including 11 lakh doses as a gift of the Chinese government.

The government has a stock of about 1.21 crore vaccine doses till Saturday afternoon, according to DGHS documents.

The government was also in negotiations with the Russian government for procuring Sputnik V vaccine.

News Courtesy:

https://www.newagebd.net/article/145092/bangladesh-likely-to-resume-second-dose-astrazeneca-jab-in-2-days