Sinopharm Vaccine: China to give another six lakh doses as gift
China yesterday announced providing the second batch of 600,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine to Bangladesh as gift.
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi had a phone conversation with Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen in this regard.
In a statement, Chinese embassy in Dhaka said China pays close attention to the latest epidemic situation in Bangladesh.
At this critical time in Bangladesh's fight against the epidemic, China is concerned about the urgent need for vaccine of Bangladeshi friends, the embassy said.
"It is believed that the arrival of the second batch of Chinese gift vaccine will definitely help the Bangladeshi government and people build a strong line of defense against the epidemic."
Last week, China gifted the first batch of 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine to Bangladesh.
This fully reflects that China attaches great importance to the friendly relations between the two countries, the Chinese embassy said.
In future, China is willing to provide the necessary support for Bangladesh and South Asian countries to fight the epidemic, deepen anti-epidemic cooperation with Bangladesh, and effectively protect the health and life safety of the people of the two countries, it added.
The gift comes at a time when Bangladesh is desperately seeking to import Covid-19 vaccines from different countries.
The country is in the final stage of signing deals with China and Russia to buy vaccines and eventually go for co-production.
Bangladesh has also requested the US and Canada for AstraZeneca vaccines for second dose of some 2 lakh people who got the first dose but are not getting the second one amid shortage of AstraZeneca vaccines.
Bangladesh purchased three crore doses of Covishield, the coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and drugmaker AstraZeneca and manufactured by Serum Institute of India.
Amid a steep rise in Covid cases in India and reports of shortage of vaccines, the Indian government reportedly paused vaccine exports in March to meet domestic demand.