20 lakh doses of Sinopharm arrive today

Twenty lakh doses of China's Sinopharm vaccine for Covid-19 will arrive in Dhaka tonight.

The shipment is expected to arrive at 11:45pm today, ABM Khurshid Alam, director general of the Directorate General of Health Services, told The Daily Star.

Officials said the vaccine will arrive in two separate flights from Beijing to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka.

Meanwhile, Hualong Yan, deputy chief of mission at the Chinese Embassy in Dhaka, in a Facebook post, wrote, "China to gift 1 million more vaccines to our Bangladeshi brothers and sisters in their fight against the pandemic."

The Chinese government has earlier gifted 11 lakh doses of Sinopharm vaccine to Bangladesh.

Apart from this, Bangladesh signed an agreement with Sinopharm to procure 1.5 crore doses that will be delivered in three months.

As part of that agreement, Bangladesh has received 20 lakh doses of the Sinopharm vaccine earlier this month.

The government started inoculating people with the Sinopharm vaccine everywhere except the city corporation areas.

On Wednesday, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal told journalists that the government would purchase 1.5 crore Sinopharm shots at a price lower than the one mentioned in the previous agreement.

A total of 15 million doses will be purchased at a lower price, he said.

The minister, however, didn't disclose the price citing "strategic" reasons.