No Scarcity of COVID-19 Vaccines: Maleque

Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque said on Wednesday all people will be vaccinated as there is no scarcity of COVID-19 vaccines.

''We have distributed a required number of vaccines to all designated hospitals across the country… if necessary, we will provide more vaccines to these hospitals to bring all people under vaccination coverage,'' he told a function of Dhaka Dental College here, an official release said.

The minister said Bangladesh has so far brought 70 lakh COVID-19 vaccines and 22 lakh more vaccines will be brought by February 22. ''We will collect vaccine every month to make countrywide vaccination coverage a success,'' he added.

According to the health ministry, 50 lakh Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines purchased by the government reached Dhaka on January 25 as part of a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on November 5 and a subsequent agreement on December 13 among the Bangladesh Government, Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd (BPL) and the Serum Institute of India (SII).

The agreement ensures the availability of three crore COVID-19 vaccine doses in phases from the Serum Institute.

Bangladesh received its first-ever COVID-19 vaccine consignment on January 21 (Thursday) as India sent 20 lakh doses of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca as gift.