Twenty lakh more doses of the Sinophamrm vaccine are expected to reach Dhaka from China early Tuesday.

The vaccine doses are scheduled to land at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on a flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines at 2.30am, according to the health ministry.

On August 16, Bangladesh, China and Incepta Vaccine Limited signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the coproduction of Sinopharm vaccine in Bangladesh.

Incepta, a leading pharmaceutical company of Bangladesh, will bring in bulk and bottling, labelling and finishing of the vaccine will be done locally, making the price relatively very cheap.

China has provided 2.1 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine as a gift to Bangladesh, 3.4 million doses under the COVAX facility, and 8 million doses as part of an arrangement of a large-scale commercial purchase so far.

READ: MoU signing on coproduction of Sinopharm jab Aug 16

Till now, 13.5 million Sinopharm vaccines have arrived from China. Of them, 1.1 million shots were received under the COVAX facility.

Bangladesh is now administering vaccines developed by four companies – AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Sinopharm.

The government has administered at least 26,129,187 doses of Covid vaccines – enough to have vaccinated around 7.8% of the country's population, assuming every person needs two doses.

Bangladesh has administered 9,842,979 shots of Sinopharm as the first dose and 1,837,817 as the second dose so far.

The Covid vaccines cannot offer 100% protection but when more people are jabbed there is less opportunity for the virus to infect and spread.

READ: A million more Sinopharm doses land in Bangladesh

Getting vaccinated prevents severe illness, hospitalisations, and death; and with the Delta variant; this is more urgent than ever, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since the start of the Covid pandemic, Bangladesh has recorded 1,497,261 infections and 26,109 deaths, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.