Bangladesh gets 2nd batch of COVID vaccine from India

DHAKA, Bangladesh

The second batch of 2 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India arrived in Bangladesh, according to government officials on Tuesday.

Shamsul Haque from the Health Ministry and an official responsible for the mass inoculation program in Bangladesh told Anadolu Agency that the vaccines arrived in the country.

The South Asian nation with more than 165 million population has so far received a total of 7 million doses of the vaccine from the Indian company following a November 2020 agreement among the Serum Institute of India, Bangladesh's Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd., and the Bangladeshi government.

Bangladesh also received an additional 2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as a good gesture from the Indian government.

According to the tripartite agreement, Dhaka will receive a total of 30 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Each month, additional doses under the agreement will gradually arrive in Bangladesh from the Serum Institute of India, Haque said, adding that the government is prepared to distribute the jabs.

Before the arrival of the second shipment on Tuesday, Nazmul Hasan Papon, the managing director of the vaccine distributor Beximco Pharma, said the vaccines will be kept at the company's storage and delivered properly across the country according to the demands of the Health and Family Welfare Ministry.

Bangladesh has so far vaccinated some 2.3 million people since the mass inoculation began on Feb. 7 across the country, according to the ministry.

The country has registered 8,356 coronavirus-related deaths and 543,717 infections since the first COVID-19 case was detected on March 8 last year.