Published in: The Daily Star

Date: 14 Dec 2020

The country will receive the first consignment of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine in January, Health Minister Zahid Maleque yesterday said.

Fifty lakh shots of the three crore doses of the vaccine could reach the country on any day of January, he said while addressing a procurement contract-signing ceremony of the vaccine at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in Dhaka.

The remaining doses will come in phases with 50 lakh each month.

Prof ABM Khurshid Alam, director general of the DGHS, signed the agreement on behalf of the government and Nazmul Hasan Papon, managing director of Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd, on behalf of the mediator company.

The contract paper will be sent to the Serum Institute of India (SII) for producer’s authorisation.

Among others, Prof Nasima Sultana, additional director general (administration) of the DGHS, was also present there.

On November 5, the health ministry signed a tri-lateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Beximco and SII to purchase three crore doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine.

Against this backdrop, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on December 2 approved in principle a proposal of the Health Services Division to procure Covid-19 vaccine directly from any organisation through negotiations without following any bidding process.

Pune-based Serum has an agreement with AstraZeneca to manufacture the vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, being developed by the Oxford University. The vaccine has been branded Covishield in India.

Once the vaccine is approved for human application, Beximco Pharma will buy each dose from Serum for $4 and then supply it to the government for $5.

Each person will need two doses.

On November 16, the finance ministry initially allocated some Tk 735.77 crore for the Health Service Division to procure the Covid-19 vaccine.

Apart from the vaccine from SII, Bangladesh will buy 68 million doses from the Gavi under a global arrangement called COVAX. The first shipment of vaccine doses from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is likely to be delivered between February and June next year, health directorate officials said.

NEW DEATHS
Thirty-two more people died from Covid-19 in 24 hours ending at 8:00am yesterday, according to a DGHS press release.

With this, the total number of deaths has now reached 7,052, and the death rate stands at 1.44 percent.

At least 1,355 new infections were recorded during the period, taking the number of people infected to 4,90,533, the release added.

Against a total of 12,748 tests in those 24 hours, the positivity rate was 10.63 percent, while the total positivity rate was 16.52 percent.

Meanwhile, 3,393 Covid-19 patients recovered in the same 24 hours, bringing the number of recoveries to 4,20,896. This was 85.80 percent of all confirmed cases.

Of the 32 deceased, 24 were men and eight women.

One was aged between 21 and 30, one between 41 and 50, three were aged between 31 and 40, seven between 51 and 60, and 20 were above 60 years, added the release.

Source:

https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/covid-vaccine-first-shipment-arriving-jan-2010873