Bangladesh is set to receive three million more doses of China’s Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine on Thursday night.
This is the third consignment of the purchased vaccine Bangladesh is receiving from China, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Assistant Director Shahriar Sazzad confirmed to Dhaka Tribune.
Sazzad, who is also chief of the Dhaka airport unit, said the vaccines would arrive on three flights.
The authorities are expecting to receive one million doses of vaccine from each flight that will land at 10:15pm on Thursday and 1:15am and 4:15am early on Friday.
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DGHS sources said officials from the health ministry and the DGHS would receive the vaccine.
Bangladesh has so far received 4.5 million doses from China as purchased vaccines.
Bangladesh initially signed a deal to purchase 15 million doses of vaccines from Sinopharm, which was expected to be delivered within three months.
After receiving the first consignment, the country struck another deal for 15 million vaccines, including the previous 13 million vaccines under the first agreement.
After the fresh agreement, Bangladesh received 2.5 million doses of vaccines.
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Besides, China had sent 1.1 million Sinopharm doses as a gift in two consignments in July.
Till now the country has received 5.6 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine.
Of them, the country had administered over 1.8 million doses of vaccines till Wednesday.
The country is mainly administering the Sinopharm vaccine at the upazila level or in areas outside the jurisdiction of city corporations.
