COVID-19 vaccine
50% of vaccination target can be met by December: Health Minister
Health Minister Zahid Maleque said on Wednesday that 50 per cent of the vaccination target can be achieved by December this year as Covid-19 jabs are arriving in the country as planned.
"We have already proven that it is possible to give 80 lakh doses of vaccine in a day if the health sector wants. So from now on, if three crore doses of vaccine arrive in the country every month as per the demand, we will be able to give them to the people," said the minister.
The minister stated this at a meeting on healthcare and development issues of the country organised by UHFPO, an organisation of Upazila Health Officers, at Hotel Intercontinental in the capital.
The minister said the country has also started inoculating school-going students between the ages of 12 and18 and gradually all the people of the country will be vaccinated.
The minister said even though Bangladesh itself has not produced any vaccine yet, the country now has almost all types of vaccines produced in the world.
Read: Japan to provide more vaccine doses through COVAX in Nov
"From now on, at least three crore doses of vaccine will come to the country every month," Zahid said. He also mentioned that the shipment of Chinese Sinopharm vaccines continues as per the agreement.
More vaccines have begun to arrive as per the agreement through the World Health Organization. Serum Institute of India has also started the export of Covishield vaccine.
Other vaccines including Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca under the COVAX facility have started to arrive in the country.
Referring to the opposition's criticism of the country's health sector, the health minister said that his ministry successfully dealt with dengue along with combating Covid-19. This has been appreciated internationally.
Besides, Bangladesh has ranked 26th in the world in tackling Covid pandemic in a recent survey conducted by Nippon in Japan, including Bloomberg and the World Health Organization, he said.
Prof ABM Khurshid Alam, Director General of Department of Health, Ebadul Karim MP, Managing Director of Beacon Pharmaceuticals, and Lokman Hossain Mia, Senior Secretary of Department of Health Services, were present among others at the meeting.
Bangladesh receives 1 million doses of Sinovac vaccine
Bangladesh on Tuesday received 1 million doses of Sinovac vaccine as a gift from the Chinese government.
This is the fifth batch of gifted Covid-19 vaccine doses from the Chinese Government to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh received four batches of gifted Chinese Sinopharm vaccine doses in May, June, and August of 2021.
Global Covid cases near 241 million
The overall number of global Covid cases is approaching 241 million even with mass inoculations underway in several countries.
According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 240,665,365 while the death tally from the virus reached 4,898,487 as of Monday morning.
The US has recorded 44,933,336 cases to date and more than 724,317 people have died so far from the virus in the country, according to the university data.
Read: Covid-19: Bangladesh reports increased deaths, cases in 24 hrs
Brazil, which has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January, registered 21,644,464 cases so far as of Saturday, while its Covid death toll has risen to 603,282.
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 34,067,719 on Sunday, as 14,146 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.
The number of new infections registered in the past 24 hours was the lowest in 229 days, added the federal health ministry.
Besides, as many as 144 deaths were recorded since Saturday morning, taking the death toll to 452,124.
Meanwhile, Russia has reported its largest daily number of new coronavirus infections, more than 70% up on the number a month ago as the country faces a sustained rise in cases.
The national coronavirus task force of Russia on Sunday said 34,303 new infections were recorded in the previous day, compared with the 20,174 reported Sept. 19. The death toll of 999 was barely lower than the record 1,002 deaths reported on Saturday.
Read: FDA panel endorses lower-dose Moderna COVID shot for booster
Russian authorities have tried to speed up the pace of vaccinations with lotteries, bonuses and other incentives, but widespread vaccine skepticism and conflicting signals from officials stymied the efforts. The government said this week that about 43 million Russians, or some 29% of the country’s nearly 146 million people, are fully vaccinated.
Situation in Bangladesh
Covid-19 in Bangladesh claimed 16 more lives and infected another 314 people in 24 hours till Sunday morning.
Both the numbers of death and infection marked a slight rise from Saturday when six Covid-related deaths and 293 cases were reported in 24 hours.
The daily-case positivity rate declined slightly to 1.74 per cent today from Saturday’s 1.88 per cent.
With the fresh numbers, the Covid fatalities reached 27,768 today while the caseload climbed to 1,565,488 in Bangladesh, according to the Directorate General of the Health services (DGHS).
Read: India's Everest Organics starts making ingredient for Merck's COVID-19 pill
Of the latest deceased, 10 were men and six were women.
However, the mortality rate remained static at 1.77 per cent compared to the same period.
Besides, the recovery rate rose slightly to 97.60 per cent, with 529 more patients getting cured during the period.
So far, 1,527,862 people have recovered from the deadly virus infections, the DGHS added.
Moderna has no plans to share its COVID-19 vaccine recipe
Moderna has no plans to share the recipe for its COVID-19 vaccine because executives have concluded that scaling up the company's own production is the best way to increase the global supply, the company’s chairman said Monday.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Noubar Afeyan also reiterated a pledge Moderna made a year ago not to enforce patent infringement on anyone else making a coronavirus vaccine during the pandemic.
“We didn’t have to do that," Afeyan said. ”We think that was the right, responsible thing to do.” He added: “We want that to be helping the world.”
Read:Japan suspends 1.63M doses of Moderna over contamination
The United Nations health agency has pressed Moderna to share its vaccine formula. Afeyan said the company analyzed whether it would be better to share the messenger RNA technology and determined that it could expand production and deliver billions of additional doses in 2022.
“Within the next six to nine months, the most reliable way to make high-quality vaccines and in an efficient way is going to be if we make them," Afeyan said. Asked about appeals from the World Health Organization and others, he contended that such pleas assumed ”that we couldn’t get enough capacity, but in fact we know we can.”
Moderna “went from having zero production to having 1 billion doses in less than a year," Afeyan said, referring to the Massachusetts-based company's sprint to develop the vaccine and produce it in large quantities. "And we think we will be able to go from 1 to 3 billion" in 2022.
"We think we are doing everything we can to help this pandemic,'' Afeyan added, citing the company's increasing output and its pledge on patent infringement.
He noted that $2.5 billion (about 2.1 billion euros) and 10 years were spent in developing the platform that makes Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine.
“Others joined the hunt when COVID-19 came along, and we're glad to see that the capacity therefore has been increased considerably beyond what Moderna would have been able to do” by itself, Afeyan said.
Read: Moderna says vaccine 93% effective but seeks 3rd-shot in fall
Asked how successful he thought others might be if they started from scratch using Moderna patents, he declined to speculate. But “it's hard for me to imagine that they would be able to get any meaningful scale in a short time frame at the quality we would be able to do as a certainty” for 2022.
Asked about recent criticism that Moderna has been furnishing its vaccine mainly to wealthy countries while low-income countries clamor for the product, Afeyan said the company supplied a “quite significant” output to poorer nations, mostly through its work with the U.S. government, which contracted early in the pandemic with the company for doses.
Moderna is working with multiple governments "to help them secure supplies for the express purpose of supplying to low-income countries,'' the executive said.
“There is more supply in the EU and the U.S. government than they will be able to use,” said Afeyan, who is also a co-founder of Moderna.
Read: Close to committing $1 billion to Moderna for Covid-19 booster shot: Cipla
Separately, Moderna made a commitment in May to Covax, the U.N.-backed vaccine program, to arrange for a total of 500 million does to go to poorer countries. He said probably 40 million doses would begin to ship in the last three months of this year, with the rest shipping next year.
The COVID-19 vaccine is Moderna's only commercial product. The company announced plans last week to open a vaccine plant somewhere in Africa. Afeyan said he hopes a decision will be made soon on an exact location. Still, it could take years to get the plant up and running.
Afeyan spoke on the last full day of a visit to Italy in which he met Pope Francis, who has appealed for universal vaccine access. He also appeared in Venice to promote a humanitarian prize.
Co-founded by Afeyan, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative aims to “empower modern-day saviors to offer life and hope” to those urgently needing basic humanitarian aid. Through the prize, the organization has awarded $5 million in grants to more than 30 humanitarian projects to help people recover from war, famine, genocide, human rights violations and other challenges.
‘Mission 100 Days’ launched to curb Covid during festivals in India
The central government has started a campaign dubbed Mission 100 Days to control the spread of Covid-19 infections during the festive season, said people familiar with the matter.
According to Hindustan Times, there were 230,971 active Covid-19 cases as on Sunday, according to government data, with 34 districts in nine states and Union territories still reporting a weekly positivity rate of at least 10 percent. A weekly rate of five percent or less indicates the spread of infections is somewhat under control, according to the World Health Organization. There are fears that the three-month festive season that started in October could see a resurgence of Covid-19.
“This year should be about Covid-safe festivities, which in effect means people celebrate festivals largely online to avoid spreading Covid-19,” a central government official said on condition of anonymity. “We are asking states to be extra vigilant during the next 100 days, and ensure that Covid-appropriate behaviour is observed. Only then we will be able to save the country from an expected surge in cases.”
Read: Indian Govt allows export of Russian COVID vaccine Sputnik Light manufactured by Hetero Biopharma
A “prevention fatigue has set in among the masses, which is why it is more important to make extra efforts to make people understand the importance of not giving up right now”, the official said. “It is important to keep on doing what we are doing to prevent the disease spread with greater intensity, and look for ways to improve on existing measures for better effect.”
The Centre has been regularly issuing guidelines to states, asking them to intensify containment measures in areas or districts that continue to report high caseloads, such as aggressive testing and strictly marking containment zones. States have also been asked to generate awareness among people so that it becomes a collective effort, especially during the festive season, as new cases have always seen a surge after festivals.
The Centre has asked states to not allow mass gatherings in containment zones and districts reporting at least 5 percent case positivity. Even when gatherings are allowed in such districts, they should need permissions and there has to be caps on the number of attendees. Physical visits or meetings are to be discouraged in favour of online darshans and virtual celebrations. All rituals such as effigy burning, pandal hopping during the Durga Puja, Dandiya and Garba, and Chhath Puja should be symbolic, the guidelines said.
Read: India: Junior Home Minister's son held 'for killing farmers'
“Crowded spaces are fertile ground for disease transmission. Therefore, it is important to not allow crowding, especially in closed spaces, as it has been well-established that the disease is airborne,” said Dr GC Khilnani, former head, pulmonology department, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi. “This is not the time to drop your guard as an infectious disease can always flare up if there is laxity in Covid-appropriate behaviour.”
Twenty-eight districts across 12 states and Union territories are reporting a weekly positivity rate between 5 and 10 percent. Five states — Mizoram, Kerala, Sikkim, Manipur and Meghalaya — are reporting a weekly positivity rate of at least 5 percent.
“It has to be a collective effort if we want to stop experiencing more waves. Since it is people’s behaviour that will eventually determine whether we see any more waves or not and if we do then how intense those are going to be, it is pertinent for the people to adhere to Covid-appropriate behaviour and for the governments to ensure it is strictly implemented,” said another official, also requesting anonymity.
Read:Ailing Air India sold to Tata Group
Health ministry officials on Thursday urged people to be careful during the festive season as the pandemic is far from over.
“We cannot afford to take the current stable situation for granted. We have to be mindful of the fact that the pandemic is still going on and can take an untoward turn if we are not careful. People need to avoid crowded places and unnecessary travel; stay home as far as possible and celebrate festivals virtually with shopping online,” said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, ministry of health and family welfare.
Intensifying measures during the festival season does not mean we can relax at other times, said the first official cited earlier. “We have to be careful throughout because we are dealing with a highly infectious disease. However, these three months require extra caution, and that is what all states and Union territories have been explained,” he said.
Indian Govt allows export of Russian COVID vaccine Sputnik Light manufactured by Hetero Biopharma
The Indian government has permitted the export of Russia’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik Light domestically produced as the jab has not yet been approved for emergency use in India, sources said on Sunday, reports The Indian Express.
Indian drug firm Hetero Biopharma Limited has been allowed to export 40 lakh doses of Sputnik Light to Russia, sources in the know of the developments told PTI.
Sputnik Light is the same as component-1 of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V which is being used in India’s anti-COVID inoculation programme after getting emergency use authorisation from India’s Drug Regulator in April.
The Russian ambassador had urged the Indian government to allow the export of Sputnik Light produced by Hetero Biopharma, one of the partners of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) in the production of the jab, to his country till the vaccine gets emergency use authorisation from India’s drug regulator.
Read: India: Junior Home Minister's son held 'for killing farmers'
In a communication to the Centre, Russian Ambassador Nicholay Kudashev had stated that Hetero Biopharma Limited already has manufactured one million doses of Component 1 of the Sputnik V and two million doses of the Sputnik Light but the six-month shelf life of the vaccine may expire before its registration which will result in the wastage of vaccine doses, sources said.
“The government has permitted Indian drug firm Hetero Biopharma to export 40 lakh doses of Sputnik Light to Russia. The decision was taken this week following detailed deliberations,” a source said.
Over the past months, the RDIF has been working closely with Indian pharmaceutical companies to ramp up the production of Sputnik vaccine in India that could be used in the local and global markets, the ambassador had stated in his communication last month.
At the moment RDIF together with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories is working with authorities concerned on the registration of the Sputnik Light in India.
“We would like to note that Indian manufacturers of the Russian vaccine are discouraged by the current ban that prevents the use of the produced Sputnik Light vaccine in India and its export to other countries,” stated the communication from the ambassador to V K Paul, chair of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC).
Read:Ailing Air India sold to Tata Group
If permanent or time-to-time permission could be granted to Hetero Biophar Limited to export the produced Sputnik Light vaccine by selling it to RDIF until its registration in India, this could encourage the company to scale up the production of the vaccine and provide the Indian market with more supplies of the Sputnik Light by the moment of its regulatory approval, it said.
The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had in September given permission to Dr Reddy’s Laboratory Limited to conduct phase-3 bridging trials of Sputnik Light in India.
The DCGI’s permission was based on the recommendations by the Subject Expert Committee on COVID-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation(CDSCO), which held its meeting on August 5.
According to the recommendations of the SEC meeting held last month, Dr Reddy’s, which has tied up with the RDIF to market the jab in India, presented updated safety, immunogenicity and efficacy data of Phase III clinical trial of Sputnik Light vaccine conducted in Russia, along with the proposal to conduct the clinical trial in India. “After detailed deliberation, the committee recommended for grant of permission for conduct of Phase III immune-bridging clinical trial in Indian population subject to the condition…”, the SEC recommendation had said.
Read: Indian tourist visas to be issued from Oct 12
The Committee noted that the firm has now presented the safety and immunogenicity along with the longevity of the antibodies, which gives a measure of the persistence of antibodies in the participants.
In July, the subject expert committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation had refused to grant emergency-use authorisation for Sputnik Light.
The single-dose Sputnik Light vaccine demonstrated 79.4 percent efficacy according to analysed data taken from 28 days after the injection was administered as part of Russia’s mass vaccination program between December 5, 2020 and April 15, 2021. An efficacy level of almost 80 percent is higher than that of many two-dose vaccines.
Sputnik Light has proven effective against all new strains of coronavirus, as demonstrated by the Gamaleya Center during laboratory tests, a press release from RDIF had said on May 6.
WHO okays vaccination of those below 18 in Bangladesh: Health Minister
The World Health Organization (WHO) has approved the vaccination of those who are under 18 years of age in Bangladesh, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Sunday.
"I’ve met WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and he has given a nod to it [vaccination of those under 18] when we sought his advice on vaccination of students," he said.
The minister revealed the information at a press briefing on Covid-19 vaccine at BCPS auditorium in the capital.
Also read: 70-80% people to be vaccinated by March next: Minister
The health minister said students between 12-17 years will be inoculated with US-produced Pfizer vaccine doses as it is suitable for them.
“We’re preparing for that. We’ve 6 million doses of Pfizer vaccine in stocks; we’ll get another four million doses soon. We’ve no crisis now.”
He also expressed the hope that the government will be able to vaccinate 8 crore people with double doses between December and January, and another 4 crore with double doses between March and April.
A total of 12 crore people will be fully vaccinated by April next, said the minister.
“Bangladesh will receive 3 crore more doses of Covid-19 vaccine in October, 3.75 crore in November, 5 crore in December and 3.75 crore in January. About 16 crore doses will be procured or collected from various sources by January.
Also read: High school students to be vaccinated soon: DSHE chief
On September 12, the students of schools and colleges in Bangladesh returned to their classrooms after an 18-month closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bangladesh started administering the first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at three centres in Dhaka to fight off Covid-19 on June 21.
The United States said it is committed to leading the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic and they will begin this summer the allocation of 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine it is providing to Gavi for distribution by COVAX to countries around the world.
US President Joe Biden reaffirmed this commitment by announcing that his country will donate 80 million doses of vaccines to support global needs.
Vaccination drive in Bangladesh
So far, 1,79,40,300 people have fully been vaccinated in the country while 3,61,78,946 received the first dose as of Saturday, according to the Directorate General of Health Services(DGHS).
On January 27, Prime Minister Hasina launched the Covid-19 vaccination programme at Kurmitola General Hospital through a videoconference.
The government rolled out a countrywide mass Covid-19 vaccination drive on February 7 vaccinating people aged 55 and above in the first phase.
On July 29, the government lowered the minimum age limit for taking Covid-19 jabs to 25 from 30 years in a bid to give a boost to the lagging vaccination rates in the country.
Covid-19: Experts say Bangladesh close to reaching herd immunity threshold
Even though Bangladesh logged 15,61,463 Covid-19 cases as of Friday, experts believe around 70 percent population of the country may have contracted the virus and developed natural antibodies.
Some experts think that the country is close to reaching the herd immunity threshold while some others say a comprehensive serosurveillance report is necessary to reach a conclusion over it.
They all, however, viewed that it is necessary to inoculate around 70-80 percent of people of the country to attain herd protection against the Coronavirus as any virulent new variant like Delta can emerge and dodge people’s natural immune protection.
Read Kindergartens in Chandpur struggle to recover from Covid-19 shocks, many stay closed
Herd immunity is a concept based on the body's immune resistance to the spread of a deadly disease (bacterial or viral infection) and it can be obtained in two ways -- naturally through infections of the majority of the population and artificially through vaccinating around 80 percent of the population of a country.
Official data on infection, vaccination
As per the data of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Bangladesh reported 15,61,463 cases till Friday while the positivity rate was 2.77. The daily-case positivity rate in the country remained below 5 percent for over last two weeks.
According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), a total of 35,829,418 people received the first dose of vaccines while 17,795,120 ones both doses as of October 7. The country has so far collected 64,568,420 doses AstraZeneca , Pfizer, Moderna and Sinopharm vaccines.
Read DU to collaborate with AFC Biotech to develop Covid-19 vaccine
Meanwhile, Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Saturday said around five crore people have already been vaccinated while 50 percent will be brought under the vaccination by December next.
He said they also have a plan to vaccinate 70-80 percent people of the country by March next year.
Debate over antibody, herd immunity
Based on some studies on samples collected from both symptomatic and asymptomatic Covid positive individuals, Ramon Magsaysay Award-winning Bangladeshi scientist Dr Firdausi Qadri said 60-70 percent people of Bangladesh have gained some types of antibodies against Covid-19.
Read: Bangladesh unlikely to reach Covid herd immunity anytime soon: Expert
Bangladesh receives 10 lakh doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from India
Bangladesh on Saturday received 10 lakh doses of AstraZeneca vaccine as part of commercial purchase from India.
The consignment arrived at 17:40pm, said the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, mentioning that this is commercial supply against the Beximco’s purchase order.
Bangladesh has so far received 8 million of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses produced by Serum Institute of India (SII) through its contract.
READ: Bangladesh to get 2 lakh AstraZeneca shots from Romania as gift
Bangladesh also received 3.3 million doses of vaccine as a bilateral partnership gift.
70-80% people to be vaccinated by March next: Minister
The government has geared up its nationwide vaccination drive to inoculate 70-80 percent people by March next, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Saturday.
“So far, 5 crore people have been vaccinated as the countrywide campaign is underway. Fifty percent people will be given the jabs by December and 70-80 percent by March next. We’ve already procured necessary vaccine jabs,” the minister said.
Zahid Maleque also announced a programme to bring children between 12-17 years of age under the vaccination programme soon.
Also read: Covid: Dhaka advocates an equal shot at recovery
He was speaking at a progamme arranged by district Puja Celebration Council in Sadar upazila, marking Durga Puja, the biggest religious festival of the Hindu community.
He urged the Hindu community to celebrate the festival maintaining health protocols.