Health Ministry says another 1.3 million doses of the vaccine is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka on Saturday morning
Bangladesh is set to receive 1.2 million doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine under the Covax facilities on Friday.
The first batch of the total 2.5 million vaccine doses, coming from the United States, is scheduled to reach Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka at around 11:20pm on Friday, according to Health Minister Zahid Maleque.
In a media statement on Thursday, the ministry also said that the country would receive the rest of the doses – 1.3 million – on Saturday morning.
It said the health minister would be present at the airport on Friday night to receive the vaccine consignment.
This one is an mRNA vaccine that has been developed by ModernaTX, Inc of the US. Bangladesh health authorities approved it for emergency use on Tuesday.
This is a two-dose vaccine and administered 28 days apart. The unpunctured vials (varied from 11 to 15 doses) may be stored in the refrigerator between 2° and 8°C for up to 30 days.
The Moderna vaccine is the seventh approved for emergency use in Bangladesh. The other six are Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Sinopharm, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinovac, and Johnson and Johnson.
Until Wednesday, Bangladesh administered over 1.01 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines since January end. Among them, more than 5.82 million people got their first dose, over 4.28 million of whom received the second jab as well.
According to the DGHS, until Wednesday, over 55,500 people received the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine and 1,329 of them got both doses.
Meanwhile, at the same time, some 240 people also received the first dose of the Pfizer-Bio-NTech vaccine.
The health authorities also resumed the mass Covid-19 vaccination program across Bangladesh on Thursday, which will continue amid a strict week-long nationwide lockdown that started from 6am.
On Thursday, Bangladesh recorded the highest number of Covid-19 deaths – 143 – since the pandemic broke out in the country in March last year.
Between 8am Wednesday and 8am Thursday, the health directorate recorded these new deaths, which took the national tally to 14,646 as of 8am Juy 1, 2021.
During the same period, another 8,301 new cases were reported across the country, taking the nationwide caseload to 921,599.
