Health Secretary Abdul Mannan said Bangladesh may approve the third phase trial of a coronavirus vaccine developed by China in Bangladesh.
"We will give a nod to conducting the trial of a coronavirus vaccine in Bangladesh after following due procedure if the results of a phase-three trial the vaccine in China are found satisfactory. We will then approve of conducting the trial of the vaccine on the healthcare workers".
The secretary came up with the information at a press conference by the Health Ministry on Tuesday.
He said a Chinese company applied for a third-phase trial in Bangladesh through the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) and the application has already been submitted at the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
"We sat in an emergency meeting with representatives of icddr,b regarding this issue," he said.
"It will take six months to get the results of the trial. If a vaccine from anyone is available by that time, we are in contact to collect the vaccine," Mannan added.
"We have learned that a Chinese private company, Sinovac Biotech, rolled out a vaccine which has already been proven effective in the first and second trials."
To counter the coronavirus pandemic that has halted the day to day life of people all over the world and also the global economy, scientists across the globe are working to find a vaccine to the deadly virus.
Scientists of the United Kingdom, China and Russia have already claimed they are at the final stage of discovering a vaccine.
/sh/teb
