Bangladesh to resume Covid vaccine registration after Chinese doses arrive

Health Minister Zahid Maleque has said that the registration process for Covid-19 jabs will resume after more vaccines arrive in Bangladesh from China.

"The government wants to vaccinate 50 million people initially and is trying to bring 100 million doses of vaccine," he told reporters at the secretariat on Monday.

The government recently approved the use of China's Sinopharm vaccine and Russia's Sputnik-5 vaccine, as well as the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech jabs.

On May 12, a consignment of 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine, gifted by the government of China, had arrived in Dhaka.

About 1,000 students from Bangladesh's four leading medical colleges have already gotten their first shot of this vaccine.

Officials said students from public and private medical and dental colleges, nursing and medical technology institutes will be given priority for the Sinopharm vaccine, as they are the frontline fighters and the country needed more manpower in the health sector.

Several days back, Chinese nationals living in Bangladesh also started receiving the Sinopharm jabs.

However, it is yet to be decided who else would receive the rest of this batch of the vaccine.

Last week, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen also said that the government will acquire 15 million Sinopharm vaccines from China, with the first consignment expected to arrive in Dhaka in June.