Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has decided to import vaccine from GAVI Covax facility and 10 other companies across the globe.
A 20 percent people of Bangladesh will be vaccinated under Covax facility, according to the health ministry.
COVAX is co-led by GAVI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and WHO. Its aim is to accelerate the development and manufacture of Covid-19 vaccines, and to guarantee fair and equitable access to every country in the world. GAVI foundation is backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates.
The decisions were taken last week at health ministry meeting titled “The procurement of Covid-19 vaccine from global market with fair price“ presided by health service division secretary Abdul Mannan.
Besides, eight decisions were also made that including engagement of foreign ministry with the import and production of coronavirus vaccine.
This ministry will have to start vaccine diplomacy across the globe.
Other decisions includes fund collection for procurement of vaccine and knowing the import procedure of vaccine, providing financial and policy support to local pharmaceuticals to manufacture vaccine in collaboration with foreign firms including Chinese Sinovac Pharmaceutical and formulation of a roadmap for procurement of vaccine, according to decision.
Earlier, Secretary Abdul Mannan said Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac has filed an ‘appeal’ through icddr,b for conducting phase-3 a clinical trial of the vaccine in Bangladesh and it is currently pending. Sinovac is a private company and the Chinese government has no connection with it.
The company has informed that it will initially conduct vaccine trial on 4,200 health workers of seven Covid-19 dedicated hospitals in Bangladesh, he said.
The results of the vaccine will be available in six months after its use on people and during this time, the authorities concerned will talk to other countries to get vaccines from there, he said.
The results of the vaccine will be available in six months after its use on people and during this time, the authorities concerned will talk to other countries to get vaccines from there, he said.
It will be applied to health workers aged between 18 and 59 years, he added.
The convener of Jannaswashthya Sangram Parishad Faiezul Hakim said the government will have to ensure Covid-19 vaccination with free of cost.
But the ministry has planned to buy vaccine in high cost from aboard, he said.
He also said the health ministry has not taken advice from real vaccine experts rather depend on bureaucrat. The government has allocated Tk 10,000 crore block fund in this fiscal budget to control spread of deadly coronavirus infection.
The death tally from coronavirus in Bangladesh reached 3,694 on August 18 and the total number of cases recached to 2,79,144.
The low number of tests is attributed to the closure of some testing labs for Eid-ul-Adha vacation. Still, the daily infection rate remains high at 24.5 percent.
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