Home ›› National

Six lakh Sinopharm Covid jabs to reach Dhaka on June 13

Staff Correspondent
11 Jun 2021 13:59:10 | Update: 11 Jun 2021 14:42:20
Six lakh Sinopharm Covid jabs to reach Dhaka on June 13
The photo, posted on Facebook by Hualong Yan, minister counsellor and deputy chief of mission at the Chinese Embassy in Bangladesh, shows packages of Sinopharm Covid vaccines ready to be shipped to Bangladesh.

Bangladesh will receive a consignment of six lakh doses of the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine as a gift from China on June 13.

Hualong Yan, the minister counsellor and deputy chief of mission at the Chinese Embassy in Bangladesh, confirmed the matter in a Facebook post on Friday.

"600,000 gift vaccines are heading to Beijing International Airport. Arrival in Dhaka: June 13," he wrote in the post, along with three photographs of vaccine packages on their way for shipment.

Earlier on May 12, China sent five lakh doses of vaccine of the same make to Bangladesh as gifts.

In April, Bangladesh joined the China-led initiative for Covid vaccine and oxygen. 

Last month, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said that Bangladesh would buy 15 million doses of Sinopharm's vaccine.

Bangladesh inked a deal with Serum Institute of India last year for 30 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Five million doses were scheduled to be delivered each month between January and June this year. But only seven million doses arrived.

Serum stopped providing vaccine when the Indian government imposed an embargo on its export.

Bangladesh launched its countrywide inoculation drive on February 7 but Serum’s decision to stop vaccine export forced the South Asian country to suspend giving out the first dose since April 26.

The government is exploring alternative sources for the vaccine. Bangladeshi regulators have approved the emergency use of Pfizer, Russian Sputnik, and Chinese Sinopharm vaccines in recent weeks.

Bangladesh reported its first coronavirus cases on March 8 last year. The first death was reported on March 18, 2020.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on June 5 revealed that China was displeased that the procurement price of the Sinopharm vaccine was made public in Bangladesh. 

In order to ease tension, Bangladesh sent a letter to China regretting the incident.

Covid-19 situation in Bangladesh

Bangladesh on Thursday registered 36 more coronavirus-related deaths and 2,537 fresh cases in 24 hours, with the Covid situation worsening post the detection of the Delta variant in different parts of the country.

Although district administrations have imposed restrictions in most of the frontier districts to bring the situation under control, the infection and death rates are on the rise.

The latest death toll pushed up the fatalities to 12,949. The Covid-19 death toll crossed the 12,000-mark in Bangladesh on May 11.

With the new cases, the total caseload rose to 8,17,819, said the Directorate General of Health Services.

×