Bangladesh set to receive 2.5 million more Pfizer Covid jabs from US

Some 2.5 million more doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine under the Covax facility are scheduled to reach Bangladesh from the United States in three shipments on Monday night and Tuesday.

Three cargo flights of Emirates Airlines, carrying the vaccine doses sent by the US, will land at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka around 11:20pm on Monday and 12pm and 11:20pm on Tuesday, according to Health Ministry officials.

The first shipment will contain 625,950 doses, the second shipment 1,256,580 doses and the third one 625,950 doses.

Senior officials of the Health Ministry, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Central Medical Stores Depot (CMSD) and the airport will receive the vaccine consignments.

Earlier, a total of 3,604,480 doses of Pfizer vaccine -- including 100,620 doses in the first phase, 1,003,860 doses in the second phase, and another 2.5 million doses in the third phase -- had arrived in the country from the US under the Covax facility. 

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Bangladesh started administering the first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at three centres in Dhaka on June 21.

The US said it is committed to leading the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic and it will begin this summer with the allocation of 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine it is providing to Gavi for distribution by Covax to countries around the world. 

US President Joe Biden reaffirmed this commitment by announcing that his country will donate 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.