Health Minister cannot remember the price of Covid vaccines
The Health Minister Zahid Maleque could not recall the prices of Covid vaccines although the government has procured 18 crore doses out of the total collected 30.50 crore doses so far.
The minister expressed his helplessness in remembering the vaccine prices at the parliament session on Sunday when Jatiya Party lawmaker Mujibul Haque Chunnu asked for the details on vaccines.
The health minister earlier also had not disclosed the vaccine prices when he was asked at another parliament session on the ground of maintaining 'secrecy'.
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"The government has collected 30.50 crore doses of Covid vaccines so far of which 26 crore doses have been administered. As many as 13 crore people have received the first dose while 12 crores got the second dose," he said, adding that about 1.5 crore people have received ongoing booster dose.
He suggested that Mujibul Haque Chunnu send a notice to learn all the prices of vaccines and their sources.
BNP lawmaker Rumin Farhana asked why the health ministry could only have spent 41% of its total budget allocation for the FY2021-22.
Responding to her question, Zahid Maleque said that they spent Tk9,000 crore of the development budget. The works were hampered due to the Covid outbreak at the beginning of the fiscal year that's why only 40% of the allocation was spent.
The minister, however, assured of spending 90% before the June closing and achieving the target as payment of some bills is still pending.
