AstraZeneca: Govt moves to buy jabs from pvt UK supplier

Bangladesh has taken an initiative to buy two million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the private sector, after appeals to the US and UK governments for Covid-19 shots yielded nothing.

The director general of the health services directorate in Dhaka recently held a virtual meeting with a supplier of the Oxford vaccine in the UK after the Bangladesh High Commission in London contacted the supplier, a high commission official told The Daily Star yesterday.

"The DG Health had some questions for the supplying company and the answers have been provided," the source said, adding that the price of the doses is being discussed.

With the current stock about to be depleted completely and two million people waiting for their second shots of the Oxford vaccine, Bangladesh has been desperately appealing to different countries for the jabs.

Bangladesh earlier purchased three crore doses of the Oxford vaccine from drugmaker Serum Institute of India. But amid a steep rise in Covid-19 cases in India and reports of a shortage of the vaccine, the Indian government suspended vaccine exports in March.

Bangladesh requested the US and Canada to provide the shots, but has yet to receive what officials said is a positive response.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen Thursday said the US has an additional 80 million doses of the Oxford vaccine.

The minister said he learnt unofficially that the US government is preferring to help India, Brazil, Spain and Indonesia before Bangladesh, because the number of deaths and infections are higher in those countries.

"Deaths and infections in Bangladesh may be low, but we have been in trouble since India halted the export of vaccines. We need the vaccine," he said.

During a phone conversation last week, Momen requested the Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to donate 15 lakh doses since the ban is on exporting.

After repeatedly requesting the UK for the vaccine, Bangladesh was recently told that the UK government could not provide any doses at the moment and advised to contact the private sector.

In July 2020, the high commission also requested AstraZeneca to hold human trials of its vaccine in Bangladesh. The company responded by saying that it had an agreement with the Serum Institute of India.

"Although we are in talks with the private sector now, we are re-appealing to the UK government again for the vaccine," the high commission official said.

In an interview with ITV, a UK television network, Momen on  Friday made an urgent appeal to the UK for the AstraZeneca vaccine.

"I'm not asking for much. I'm only asking for 1.6m AstraZeneca doses that they have... they should immediately disburse those to Bangladesh so that people can have their second doses," he said.

The UK government should help the Commonwealth member states. Besides, Bangladesh is a good friend of the UK and many Bangladeshis contribute to the UK economy, he said.

China, meanwhile, provided Bangladesh with 5 lakh doses of the Sinopharm vaccine last week and announced giving 6 lakh more. Bangladesh is in the final stage of making a deal to buy the Sinopharm vaccine from China and Sputnik V vaccine from Russia.