Bangladesh has signed an agreement to collect doses of Oxford University's Covid-19 vaccine, Health Minister Zahid Malik said.

Developed by AstraZeneca, the vaccine is awaiting approval before it is marketed.

Everyone will get the vaccine shots in phases, he said today after inaugurating a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) lab in Manikganj's Colonel Malek Medical College Hospital.

"Not a single death is desirable. However, 15 to 20 people are dying from Covid-19 every day in Bangladesh, where the number is 700-800 in the developed countries.

"Covid-19 caught every affected country off guard. We had no idea about its treatment; there was no advanced lab in the country for Covid-19 testing either," the health minister said.

"With the inauguration of the lab at Colonel Malek Medical College, we have 115 RT-PCR labs in the country now. The government is planning to set up one RT-PCR lab and medical college in each district."