Bangladesh is receiving the shots under the Covax scheme run by WHO and Gavi
Bangladesh is set to receive a consignment of 100,620 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Monday.
According to the Health Ministry, the shipment is slated to arrive in Dhaka at 11:20pm on Monday, 24 hours behind the original timetable.
The vaccine doses are coming to Bangladesh under the Covax facility run by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
The Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) approved the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use in Bangladesh on Thursday, after an evaluation panel recommended its emergency use on May 25.
The announcement comes at a time when the country is battling the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic amid a supply shortage of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, which was supposed to be delivered by neighboring India.
Prof ABM Khurshid Alam, chief of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), earlier said that the residents of Dhaka, waiting for their first Covid-19 vaccine dose after signing up on the national vaccine registration platform Surokkha, would get the Pfizer shots once its first consignment had arrived.
