1.5cr Doses of Sinopharm Vaccines: Delivery starts in June

Bangladesh will purchase 1.5 crore Sinopharm vaccines from China, and its first consignment is likely to arrive in Dhaka in June, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said yesterday.

Following a meeting with UN General Assembly President Volkan Bozkır at the Foreign Service Academy, he said, "The deal in this regard is almost final. It will be signed very soon."

The update comes when the country saw a steep rise in deaths and new cases of Covid-19 yesterday.

Momen said Dhaka sought to buy the 1.5 crore vaccines initially from China with 50 lakh vaccines each month of June, July and August.

Referring to his telephone conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week, he said the Chinese minister termed Bangladesh as a good friend and that they would ensure a steady flow of the vaccines.

He said Bangladesh has also approved emergency use authorisation for another Chinese vaccine of Sinovac. A Chinese team will also visit Bangladesh in a week or so to see the feasibility of vaccine co-production, he noted.

Momen said the discussion with Russia is also at the final stage. Now some nitty-gritty is being worked out by the health ministry.

"When the vaccine will arrive, the amount, insurance, what happens if the vaccine is not effective…our health ministry if finalising it. They are doing it quite efficiently," he said.

"We will also get the vaccine from Covax. So, we think there will not be any problem of vaccine supply in the coming days," Momen said.

Bangladesh moved to buy vaccines from China and Russia after India halted vaccine export in March, after Serum Institute of India had delivered 7 million of the 30 million shots Bangladesh bought.

ADMINISTRATION BEGINS

Bangladesh started administering Sinopharm vaccine yesterday.

China gifted 5 lakh vaccines two weeks back and announced giving six lakh more as gifts, reports our staff correspondent.

On the first day, 157 students of Dhaka Medical College received the jabs. The government decided to vaccinate the students of medical colleges and frontline healthcare workers with the Chinese vaccines.

Inaugurating the inoculation campaign at Dhaka Medical College, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said the government wanted to begin mass vaccination from June.

DEATHS, NEW CASES RISE

The health directorate yesterday reported 1,675 new cases and 40 deaths in 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday.

On the previous day, a total of 1,441 people were tested positive for the virus while 25 Covid-19 patients died.

For last week, the number of new cases and deaths due to Covid-19 has been on the rise.

Earlier on May 7, 1,672 new cases were detected while 40 Covid-19 patients died on May 12.

With the latest figure, the total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 rose to 792,196 since the first three cases were reported on March 8 last year in the country.

The total number of deaths rose to 12,441 which was 1.57 percent of all confirmed cases.

The positivity rate, meanwhile, also went up yesterday to 10.08 percent against 16,624 cases. On the previous day, the positivity rate was 8.15 percent.

Meanwhile, a total of 1,279 Covid-19 patients have recovered in those 24 hours.

With this, the total number of recoveries reached 732,810, and the recovery rate at 92.50 percent.