Covid-19 Vaccination: Uncertain as govt relied on one source

Bangladesh now faces uncertainty over nationwide Covid vaccination as the government depended on a single source for procuring vaccines, Dr Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, said yesterday.

"There is still no success in securing more vaccines though the government is now trying to get those from different sources," he said.

Iftekharuzzaman was speaking at a virtual event organised to release the findings of the TIB study titled "Tackling Coronavirus Crisis: Good Governance Challenge in Covid-19 Vaccine Management".

He said the government depended on a single source for getting vaccines and this benefited a third party. But it could have purchased the jabs directly.

"Legal procedures were not duly followed in procuring the vaccine doses."

At the event, Md Julkarnayeen, a research fellow at the TIB, presented the findings of the study.

He said the government could have saved Tk 231 crore if it purchased the AstraZeneca vaccine directly from Serum Institute of India.

"The third party will make a profit of Tk 231 crore in total. If the government had bought the vaccines directly from Serum Institute of India, an additional 68 lakh doses could have been bought with the same amount of money."

He said many countries purchased AstraZeneca vaccine at prices lower than what Bangladesh paid.

Bangladesh bought it for $5 per dose while countries under the European Union got it for $2.19, India $2.8, member states of the African Union for $3 and Nepal for $4.

The TIB study said four sections of the Public Procurement Rules 2008 were violated in procuring the vaccine as the purchase plan and notice on the agreement were not published.

It also cautioned that the country is at high risk of another surge in Covid infections due to the emergence of new Covid variants, incapacity to prevent infections and stalemate in the vaccination campaign.

To overcome the crisis, the TIB made a set of recommendations including vaccine import through both private and government organisations in line with the procurement rules and immediately allowing competent companies to produce vaccines locally in a transparent way.

The study mentioned that at least 85 journalists were sued under the Digital Security Act "for writing about the pandemic".

Referring to this, Iftekharuzzaman said the government was a hundred times more active in controlling information than curbing corruption.

"There has been a growing tendency to control information during the Covid-19 pandemic, and we have seen several such incidents, including the one involving journalist Rozina Islam."

UNSATISFACTORY PERFORMANCE

The study said there is a lack of good governance in Covid testing, healthcare, enforcement of health safety guidelines, infection prevention, planning and procurement of vaccines, and implementation of the vaccination campaign.

The TIB interviewed 1,387 vaccine recipients in 43 districts between February 7 and May 31 this year and collected information from 317 organisations whose employees got priority in getting jabs.

Of those interviewed, 27.2 percent complained of hassles at vaccination centres while 50.2 percent said they were not briefed about the benefits and side-effects of the vaccine.

Many migrant workers from Bangladesh had to spend an additional Tk 60,000-70,000 each as quarantine cost upon their arrival in the destination countries as they had not been included timely in the priority list of vaccine recipients.

The study said the new Covid variant has spread in the country due to slack surveillance at airports and land ports.

Besides, there was no initiative to encourage people to change their attitude towards the pandemic which led to a spike in virus transmission in March and April.

And 26.6 percent of the Covid infections and 24.2 percent of the deaths occurred in those two months, it mentioned.

The RT-PCR testing is still limited to 30 districts and there is a lack of capacity to detect new strains of the virus.

Besides, the fees for RT-PCR test have not been reduced yet though the price of testing kits dropped significantly.

"People have to wait for four to five days to get Covid test results."

Despite the availability of funds and necessary devices, the plan to install 10 ICU beds in every district-level hospital has not been implemented yet.

Due to the crisis of ICU beds, people are being forced to take treatment at private hospitals which costs a patient more than Tk 5 lakh, the study pointed out.

The TBI recommended setting up RT-PCR labs in every district, fixing Covid treatment cost and providing livelihoods to low-income people during lockdown.

The study revealed that there was corruption in spending allocations for Covid-19 -- Tk 5-crore graft in spending Tk 62.3 crore for five hospitals, and corruption in the purchase of one lakh RT-PCR kits and issuance of purchase orders.

The progress in investigation into the corruption allegations is slow while the officials of the health department involved in these are yet to be brought to justice.

The study also said around 35 percent of the Tk 128,303-crore funds under 23 stimulus packages have not been disbursed yet. 

"While most of the funds for heavy industries have been disbursed, the pace was slow in disbursing those for agriculture, small and medium industries, and the low-income people," it mentioned.