The second shipments of Moderna and Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines reached here this morning.
“A total of 12 lakh doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine arrived at 8.30 am at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport this morning while 10 lakh shots of Sinopharm vaccine purchased by Bangladesh government reached 5.30 am,” a health ministry official told The News Times.
The first consignment of 1.3 million doses of Moderna vaccine reached the airport at 11.30 pm last night. After nearly one hour later, the first commercial consignment of 10 lakh Sinopharm vaccines arrived in Bangladesh.
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen and Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Malik received the first shipment of both Moderna and Sinopharm jabs at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.
While talking to journalists, the health minister said, ” A total of 10 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines from different countries will arrive in Bangladesh within December this year…. Five crore people will be vaccinated this year.”
Earlier, Bangladesh received 1.1 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine from China as gift in two occasions in May and June last.
On January 21, Bangladesh received first ever Oxford- AstraZeneca COVID-19 consignment as India sent 20 million doses of inoculate as gift while the country got another 12 lakh doses of Oxford- AstraZeneca jabs on March 26.
Bangladesh has so far received 1.2 crore doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from India.
On June 29, the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) approved Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of Covid-19 Moderna vaccine in the country.
Bangladesh has so far approved eight COVID-19 vaccines to control the deadly disease.
The approved COVID-19 vaccines are from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, CoronaVac, Pfizer, Covishield, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm.
As many as 72,48,829 people have so far been registered for receiving the inoculation.
On February 7, the countrywide COVID-19 vaccination campaign began with spontaneous participation of all levels of people for receiving vaccines from 1,055 designated hospitals.
As of July 1, a total of 58,20,015 people received first shot of COVID-19 vaccines while 42,89,913 got second doses of inoculation.
