Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday told Parliament that the government has taken steps to get over one crore coronavirus vaccine doses every month.

“Steps have been taken to ensure more than one crore vaccines every month,” she said.

She made the statement while answering a tabled question from ruling party MP Shahiduzzaman Sarker during PM’s question-answer session.

Sheikh Hasina said that as per the schedule Bangladesh will get two crore vaccine doses each month from Sinopharm from next October. Until December some six crore jabs will come from Sinopharm, she said.

She also said that so far (August 30) some 1,82,89,018 persons got first dose of vaccine while 78,40,169 persons got second shot. In total 2,61,29,187 doses of vaccines have been given.

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“Collection of vaccines is on while providing the shots free to the people,” she said.

The prime minister said that the government has established contacts with all vaccine producing organisations.

“Of them we got response from Indian Serum Institute and booked three crore doses of vaccines with advance payment,” she said.

 She also mentioned that there was no response from other vaccine producing companies.

“Later, Sinopharm from China and Sputnik-V gave response, we took initiative as soon as we got their response. We have inked agreement with Sinopharm and also signed Memorandum of Understanding for local production,” she said.

Responding to a question from Shamim Haider Patwari from Jatiya Party, the prime minister said that the government has taken move for permanent solution to river erosion.

She said that Delta Plan 2100 has been taken for overall river management, water supply in urban and rural areas, waste management and flood control apart from flood protection, control river erosion, river training and maintain navigability.

She mentioned that in this plan the whole country has been divided into seven river basins and surveys are going on.

The surveys in Karnaphuli, Sangu and Matamuhiri rivers have been completed.

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She said that besides increasing capability of water flow, through taking steps to maintain sustainability in the rivers and follow appropriate siltation management strategy it will be possible to attain desired sustainable development by reducing flood risk and protecting river erosion in the erosion-prone areas.

Replying to Mahfuzur Rahman the PM said that in the last four years it was possible to meet the demand of sacrificial animals through domestic production due to various steps of the government.

She said that during the Eid ul Azha the number of available animals was around 1,19,16,700 while 90,93,242 animals were actually sacrificed.

“That means around 28 lakh animals remained surplus,” she added.

She also mentioned that in the last 12 years milk production increased five times while egg production four times.