Dhaka to receive 25 lakh more Pfizer vaccine doses

Twenty-five lakh more doses of Pfizer vaccine are scheduled to reach Dhaka in three shipments on Monday night and Tuesday.

Dhaka, Oct 04 :  Twenty-five lakh more doses of Pfizer vaccine under COVAX facility are scheduled to reach Dhaka in three shipments on Monday night and Tuesday.

Three cargo flights of Emirates Airlines, carrying the vaccine doses sent by the USA, will land at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 11:20 PM on Monday, 12 pm and 11:20 pm on Tuesday, said officials at the Health Ministry.

The first shipment will contain 6,25,950 doses, the second shipment 12,56,580 doses and the third  one 6,25,950 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Senior officials of the Health Ministry, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Central Medical Stores Depot (CMSD) and the airport authority will receive the jabs at the airport.

Earlier, a total of 36,04,480 doses of Pfizer vaccine- including 1,00,620 doses in the first phase, 10,03,860 doses in the second phase and another 25 lakh doses in the third phase- arrived in the country from the United States under COVAX facility. 

Bangladesh started administering the first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at three centres in Dhaka to fight off Covid-19 on June 21.

The United States said it is committed to leading the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic and they will begin this summer the allocation of 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine it is providing to Gavi for distribution by COVAX to countries around the world. 

US President Joe Biden reaffirmed this commitment by announcing that his country will donate 80 million doses of vaccines to support global needs. 

The US is working with its G7 partners, the EU, COVAX, and others in a multilateral effort focused on saving lives, ending the pandemic, and supporting the global economic recovery, reports UNB.