Now Bangladesh requests UK to give 16 lakh AstraZeneca vaccines

Bangladesh is looking for 16 lakh doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the United Kingdom to meet the shortfall of the second phase inoculation jabs.

“To meet the demand for the second dose, we require 16 lakh jabs and we have requested the UK in this regard. It can help us if it wants,” Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen told the USA-based ITV in an interview.

“UK is our friendly country. Apart from, we are a member of the commonwealth. UK can provide us the vaccine considering these,” the foreign minister said.

Earlier, Bangladesh requested the USA, Canada and India to provide it the vaccines on an emergency basis.

Meanwhile, the US has agreed to provide some vaccine to Bangladesh, Momen said.

Earlier, Momen requested his Indian counterpart Dr S. Jaishankar to ensure supply of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Bangladesh as soon as possible to meet Bangladesh’s needs.

Bangladesh entered into a deal with the Serum Institute of India (SII) to purchase 30 million doses of a potential vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca for Covid-19.

Bangladesh was supposed to get five million doses of vaccine per month as the SII and Bangladesh’s Beximco Pharma signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for priority delivery of the vaccine doses.

Bangladesh sought at least 3 million doses of vaccine under the agreement to address the immediate demand in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has so far received only 7 million of Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine doses produced by Serum Institute of India (SII) through its contract. Bangladesh also received 3.3 million doses of vaccine as a bilateral partnership gift.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh has sought at least 2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from Canada on an emergency basis to meet the emergency need of 1.6 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to provide second doses.