'Vaccine Assistance Strengthens Bangladesh-USA Relations'

Health Minister Zahid Maleque today said the relationship between Bangladesh and the USA has become stronger as the country (USA) provided 61 million vaccines to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The USA has stood by Bangladesh through providing medical equipment alongside vaccine donation when the country was struggling to handle coronavirus disease," he made the comments while visiting vaccine assistance activities provided by the USA at Kurmitola General Hospital in the city, an official release said.

United States (US) Under Secretary for political affairs Victoria Nuland, Senior Secretary of health service division Lokman Hossain Mian, Director General of Directorate General of Health Service (DGHS) Prof Dr Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam, among others, were present on the occasion.

The health minister said when vaccine scarcity was seen across the world, the USA has sent Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to Bangladesh to combat the spread of the deadly virus.

Nuland said the US government wants to strengthen the existing bond further between Bangladesh and the USA. She thanked and expressed her gratitude to the people of Bangladesh as the country (Bangladesh) stood by the USA during its different crisis situations.

The health ministry sources said Bangladesh has set impressive success on vaccination coverage as the country has already inoculated 22,43,97,254 doses of vaccine.

The government has fixed a target to inoculate 70 percent of people with both doses of COVID-19 jabs at the quickest possible time, they said, adding Bangladesh has so far collected over 31 crore doses of vaccines and the country has intensified its efforts to collect more doses of vaccines to bring all eligible people under vaccination coverage to protect them from the COVID-19 disease.