2.5m Moderna shots to arrive soon
Says US ambassador
Bangladesh will soon receive a gift of 2.5 million doses of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine from the US, said US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl R Miller.
"Pleased to announce Bangladesh will soon receive a gift of 2.5 million doses of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine from the American people via Gavi," he tweeted yesterday.
"As the largest contributor to COVAX, the US is committed to increasing the country's vaccine supply to beat the pandemic here and worldwide," Miller said.
Covax is a global initiative coordinated by the World Health Organization, the Vaccine Alliance Gavi, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations working to ensure that low- and middle-income countries have equitable access to Covid vaccines.
Under the facility, Bangladesh was supposed to get this year 6.8 crore vaccine doses, which would cover around 20 percent of its population. But it has so far received only one consignment of 1.06 lakh doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Bangladesh is urging for vaccines from different countries of the world, including the US, UK, China, Russia, Australia and Canada, after India's halt of exporting AstraZeneca vaccines.
Serum Institute of India had supplied only 7 million of the contracted 30 million doses of the vaccine in January and February.
Indian government gifted 33 lakh AstraZeneca vaccine doses while China gifted 11 lakh Sinopharm vaccines to Bangladesh. Bangladesh also signed a deal to buy Sinopharm vaccines.
Bangladesh had requested the US to supply 2 million AstraZeneca vaccines, but no progress was known as the US FDA has yet to approve AstraZeneca.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministry in early June told the media that Bangladesh would receive 1 million 800 AstraZeneca vaccines from Covax, but it did not mention the source.
On June 21, Biden-Harris Administration announced a distribution list for 55 million of the 80 million doses of America's vaccine supply President Biden pledged to allocate by the end of June.
Of the vaccines, about 16 million will be shared with the Asian countries, including Bangladesh.
The G-7 countries last week promised 1 billion vaccines by 2022. Of the amount, 500 million will be donated by the US alone.