Bangladesh receives 1st consignment of 2.5 million Moderna vaccine doses

Dhaka
July 02, 2021, 11:42 PM
by UNB NEWS

UNB News
Dhaka
Publish- July 02, 2021, 11:42 PM
UNB NEWS
Update- July 03, 2021, 12:22 AM

Bangladesh receives 1st consignment of 2.5 million Moderna vaccine doses

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Friday night received the first consignment of 2.5 million doses of Moderna vaccine under the COVAX framework.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque, US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl R Miller, Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen, Secretary of Health Services Division Lokman Hossain Miah, and other high officials of the Bangladesh government were also present.

The second consignment will reach Dhaka on Saturday morning.

Also read: Bangladesh to receive 45 lakh vaccine doses from COVAX, China within 2 days: Minister

These 2.5 million vaccine doses are part of the US government's recent allocation of 25 million vaccine doses for countries in Asia through COVAX.

The foreign minister, health minister and high officials of the Bangladesh government are also scheduled to receive the first batch of 2 million Sinopharm vaccine doses purchased from China by the Bangladesh government.

The consignment is expected to reach Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at around 1am in two aircraft of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, said Hualong Yan, deputy chief of mission at the Chinese Embassy in Dhaka.

Also read: COVAX calls for equal recognition of all approved vaccines

Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming will remain present at the airport.

The government has so far approved the emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinopharm (China), Sputnik-V (Russia), Pfizer-BioNTech (USA/Germany) and Crona Vac (China) vaccines.