Another 5 million doses to arrive in September, says the health minister
Bangladesh is set to receive one million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine this month under the Covax initiative.
A gift from the United States, the consignment is scheduled to reach the Dhaka airport at 7:15pm on August 30 on a Qatar Airways flight, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen and US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl R Miller and the health minister will be present at the airport to receive the vaccine jabs.
Earlier, the health minister had said that Bangladesh will receive six million more Pfizer jabs under Covax facility.
“Another five million jabs will arrive in Bangladesh in phases by September,” he said.
Bangladesh started administering the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at three centres in Dhaka on June 21.
On May 31, Bangladesh received 106,000 Pfizer jabs from the US under the Covax scheme. Of them, over 90% (94,830) were dispensed till Monday.
Also Read - Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine gains full US regulatory approval
The US drug regulator on Monday granted full approval to the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE vaccine – the first to secure such Food and Drug Administration (FDA) validation.
The US said that it is committed to leading the global response to the coronavirus pandemic and will begin this summer the allocation of 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine it is providing to Gavi for distribution by Covax to countries around the globe.
US President Joe Biden reaffirmed this commitment by announcing that the country will donate total 80 million doses of vaccines to support global needs.
The US is working with its G7 partners, the EU, Covax, and others in a multilateral effort focused on saving lives, ending the pandemic, and supporting the global economic recovery.
Meanwhile, the FDA, which authorized the emergency use of the two-dose vaccine in December, provided its full approval for use in people aged 16 and above based on updated data from clinical trials and manufacturing reviews.
Bangladesh currently administers four vaccines for its inoculation campaign – AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, and Sinopharm.
As of Monday, around 16.94 million people have received the first shot while some 6.75 million got the second jab.
The coronavirus pandemic has claimed 25,399 lives and infected 1,467,715 people in Bangladesh so far.
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