Bangladesh is hopeful of receiving 55 million doses of the coronavirus vaccines from the Serum Institute of India and under a programme led by het World Health Organization within June, 2021. The government has signed a deal with Serum for 30 million shots of the vaccine developed by the UK’s University of Oxford and drugmaker AstraZeneca with 5 million doses per month. The global vaccine alliance GAVI has pledged to provide Bangladesh with about 68 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines to cover 20 percent of the population under the WHO-led COVAX programme. The minister said 25 million doses under the COVAX programme are expected to arrive by May or June. The government will be able to give the shots to 2.5 million people in a month, which means it will take about a year to give 55 million doses, according to Zahid.

Source: bd News24 December 27, 2020 13:18 UTC