10 crore people to get Covid-19 shots by December: Health secretary

Health Service Division Senior Secretary Lokman Hossain Miah today said 10 crore people would get Covid-19 shots by December this year.

Around 20 crore Covid-19 jabs will arrive by that time, he told reporters after attending a program at National Institute of Mental Health & Hospital (NIMH) at Shyamoli in the capital.

Professor Dr Md Nazmul Islam, spokesperson of the Directorate General of Health Services, said a total of 3, 15,97,320 people have received Covid jabs in Bangladesh.

Of them 1,17,56,28 people have got double doses while 1,98,41,292 people received a single dose so far.

Earlier today, a consignment of over 54 lakh Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine under the commercial agreement with China arrived in Dhaka.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque on Friday said Bangladesh will get 50 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine each week till November, this year.

"We have intensified our efforts to purchase COVID-19 jabs to accelerate the ongoing vaccination campaign to contain the deadly virus," He said.

"Bangladesh will get 2 crore doses of Sinopharm vaccines from China each month...meaning six crore jabs of Sinopharm will arrive in the country within three months," Maleque added.

The DGHS sources said the country already reached or finalized deals with different countries and companies as part of the procurement process to vaccinate the target 130 million people by 2022.

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on September 9 reiterated Bangladesh's call for making the Covid-19 vaccine a public good, noting that there are incidents of vaccines doses crossing their date of expiry for not sharing them on time with other countries.

Bangladesh has so far approved eight COVID-19 vaccines to control the deadly disease.

The approved COVID-19 vaccines are from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, CoronaVac, Pfizer, Covishield, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm.