COVID-19 vaccines
Health minister hopes to get 11 crore vaccine doses by December
Bangladesh hopes to procure 11 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines from different sources by December enabling it to provide the jabs to over five crore people, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said on Saturday.
Speaking at Manikganj Maleque said that negotiations are at an advanced level to sign a vaccine agreement with Russia.
He also added that the country will also receive doses of the Moderna vaccine very soon.
Read: Bangladesh to get 2.5 mn doses of Moderna vaccine
The minister also stated that negotiations with the relevant stakeholders to manufacture vaccines in the country are going on in full swing.
Serum may resume vaccine export in July/August
India, depending on the scale of production of vaccines within the country, is aiming at July-end or August to at least release those vaccines that have been bought by Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal and are now in pending status, reported The Print on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Vikram Kumar Doraiswami had an "informal meeting" with State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam on Wednesday at his office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
However, neither side revealed what they discussed.
Also read: Let's see what can be done, have patience: PM about vaccine management
Bangladesh entered into a deal with the Serum Institute of India (SII) to purchase 30 million doses of a potential vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca for Covid-19.
Bangladesh was supposed to get five million doses of vaccine per month as the SII and Bangladesh’s Beximco Pharma signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for priority delivery of the vaccine doses.
Also read: Bangladesh rolls out Pfizer vaccine at 3 Dhaka centers
Bangladesh sought at least 3 million doses of vaccine under the agreement to address the immediate demand in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has so far received only 7 million of Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine doses produced by Serum Institute of India (SII) through its contract. Bangladesh also received 3.3 million doses of vaccine as a bilateral partnership gift.
How India is changing vaccine plan amid shortages
Starting Monday, every adult in India will be eligible for a free vaccine paid for by the federal government.
The new policy, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, ends a complex system introduced just last month of buying and distributing vaccines that overburdened states and led to inequities in how the shots were handed out.
India is a key supplier of vaccines around the world, and its missteps at home have led it to stop exports of shots, leaving millions of people around the world waiting unprotected. Only about 3.5% of Indians are fully vaccinated and while supporters hope the policy change will make vaccine distribution more equitable, poor planning means shortages will continue.
Here’s a look at the changes to India’s vaccine policy and what they mean.
THE EARLIER POLICY
India has vast experience in running large immunization programs, and each year it distributes 300 million shots to infants and mothers for free. For these programs, the federal government is in charge of buying the vaccines and then works with the states to figure out how best to distribute them.
But the scale of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign is unprecedented. And a massive surge in March pushed India’s health system to the breaking point. As hundreds of thousands of people became infected each day and hospitals overflowed with patients gasping for air, the states complained they weren’t getting enough shots from the federal government and clamored for more control over how the vaccines were distributed.
Also read: To launch J&J Covid shot in India, Biological E begins talks with govt lab to test vaccine
So, starting in May, the federal government agreed to buy just half of all vaccines produced for use in India and continued to give them out for free to health care and frontline workers and those over 45. The other half became available for states and private hospitals to buy directly. These vaccines were destined for people between 18 and 45; they were free if obtained from the states, but cost money if obtained privately.
WHY IT DIDN’T WORK
The states had never bought vaccines before and a limited supply meant they were competing with one another as well as with private hospitals. They were forced to pay higher prices than the federal government could have negotiated, said Dr. Chandrakant Lahariya, a health policy expert.
“That essentially makes it inefficient,” he said.
Private hospitals passed that cost on to people, and amid shortages at government centers, people had to either pay for a vaccine, or not get a shot.
The change in policy also expanded eligibility to all adults. Expanding the criteria despite shortages meant shots weren’t always going to the groups the federal government initially said it would prioritize: those with essential jobs and the elderly. Since May, more people younger than 45 have received their first shot than those older than 60. More than 74 million people over 60 remain unvaccinated.
Modi said these decisions were taken to satisfy the states’ demands, but the fractured response may have cost lives, said Dr. Vineeta Bal, who studies immune systems at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Pune city.
Also read: After Black & White: First case of Green Fungus reported in India
WHAT HAS CHANGED NOW?
The federal government has now decided to buy a larger portion of vaccines — but it’s still not returning fully to its original policy. It will buy 75% of all vaccines made for use in India and likely renegotiate prices. These shots will be given to states and will continue to be distributed for free. Private hospitals can buy the remaining 25% at prices that have been capped and can charge for them.
States will receive vaccines based on their populations, disease burdens and how many people have been vaccinated. They will be penalized for wasting doses.
But supply remains a challenge. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said: “Where will the vaccines come from is a big question.”
India has placed orders for vaccines still in development, but for the moment it will continue to rely on existing, overstretched suppliers like the Serum Institute of India.
Resolution adopted seeking equitable access to Covid vaccine
The 109th International Labour Conference (ILC) has adopted a resolution with a call for timely, affordable and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines for all people in all countries for the revitalization of the global economy and the world of work.
It also called for an inclusive, sustainable and resilient recovery from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Read:Record high 82 million-plus people displaced despite Covid: UN
The ‘global call to action’ was adopted after an intense negotiation in the Covid Response Committee of the ILC.
Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh in Geneva Md Mustafizur Rahman chaired the Committee.
Bangladesh also led the Asia and Pacific Group in the negotiation as the coordinator and stressed the need for addressing the specific challenges of the region.
Read:Dhaka seeks incentive-based package for sustainable graduation of LDCs
The resolution called for ensuring access to vaccines and personal protection equipment for workers, particularly to reduce the health risk of the health workers as well as salaries and allowances of all workers during the pandemic.
It also urged the International Labour Organization to play a more effective role in accelerating the support to States to address the increasing inequalities between the developed and the developing countries.
Read:Bangladesh elected FAO Council member
The resolution emphasized the expansion of the social safety net for recovery from the pandemic with a special focus on women, older persons and migrants.
At the same time, it underscored the need for a gender-balanced, sustainable and people-centred post-pandemic recovery plan.
Official says Nepal desperately needs vaccines
Nepal has significantly reduced coronavirus infections after its worst outbreak, which overwhelmed the country’s medical system, but is in desperate need of vaccines, its health minister said Thursday.
“We have gone down from the red stage to the yellow stage, but are not yet able to reach the green zone,” Health Minister Sher Bahadur Tamang said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We are working very hard to get us there.”
Nepal has been under lockdown since April after new cases and deaths spiked following a massive outbreak in neighboring India.
Also read: Doctors in Nepal warn of major crisis as virus cases surge
Close to 10,000 new cases and hundreds of deaths were reported daily in mid-May, when the surge was at its worst. There was an acute shortage of hospital beds, medicines and oxygen for patients.
In the capital, Kathmandu, doctors treated patients in hospital corridors, verandahs and parking lots, and ambulances were turned back due to a lack of space. There were long lines at oxygen plants to fill cylinders.
After weeks of lockdown, the situation has improved. The number of new cases on Thursday was 2,607 along with 39 deaths, according to the Health Ministry.
Nepal launched a vaccination campaign in January but was forced to suspend it after India halted exports of domestically produced AstraZeneca vaccines because of its own outbreak. China then donated 800,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine in March and another 1 million earlier this month.
Still, only about 8.5% of the population has received one shot and about 2.5% have been fully immunized.
Also read: Bangladesh stands by Nepal in its Covid-19 crisis
“The main issue for us is vaccines, and unless we get vaccines we cannot say everyone is safe,” Tamang said. “We have been appealing to all countries manufacturing vaccines to please provide us with some.”
About 1.4 million elderly Nepalese received an initial dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine in March but now are unsure when they can get a second dose as the government struggles to acquire the vaccine.
Tamang said the government has set aside funds to purchase vaccines, and both the World Bank and Asian Development Bank are providing money as well, so funds are not currently a problem.
COVAX, the U.N.-backed project to supply vaccines to poor regions of the world, pledged Nepal 2 million doses by March but has only provided 248,000 because it also is facing a serious shortage.
“We were supposed to get vaccines from the COVAX facility, but we feel like we have fallen to the lowest priority position on their list,” Tamang said.
He said new regulations have been adopted to allow any vaccine producer to come to Nepal to run vaccine trials, and if possible produce them, with all fees waived.
Also read: China cancels Everest climbs over fears of virus from Nepal
With the emergency phase now over, the country needs to focus on improving its medical facilities and equipment to prepare for future disease outbreaks, Tamang said.
He noted that Nepal has received planeloads of emergency supplies such as oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators, face masks, gloves and other medical goods from the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland and Australia.
“We are very thankful to all the donors who came to help us in our time of need but now we are urging the donors to please give us ICU beds, ventilators, X-ray machines and equipment to test for other diseases too,” Tamang said.
In poorest countries, surges worsen shortages of vaccines
Hati Maronjei once swore he would never get a COVID-19 shot, after a pastor warned that vaccines aren’t safe.
Now, four months after the first batch of vaccines arrived in Zimbabwe, the 44-year-old street hawker of electronic items is desperate for the shot he can’t get. Whenever he visits a clinic in the capital, Harare, he is told to try again the next day.
“I am getting frustrated and afraid,” he said. “I am always in crowded places, talking, selling to different people. I can’t lock myself in the house.”
A sense of dread is growing in some of the very poorest countries in the world as virus cases surge and more contagious variants take hold amid a crippling shortage of vaccine.
The crisis has alarmed public health officials along with the millions of unvaccinated, especially those who toil in the informal, off-the-books economy, live hand-to-mouth and pay cash in health emergencies. With intensive care units filling up in cities overwhelmed by the pandemic, severe disease can be a death sentence.
Africa is especially vulnerable. Its 1.3 billion people account for 18% of the world’s population, but the continent has received only 2% of all vaccine doses administered globally. And some African countries have yet to dispense a single shot.
Health experts and world leaders have repeatedly warned that even if rich nations immunize all their people, the pandemic will not be defeated if the virus is allowed to spread in countries starved of vaccine.
“We’ve said all through this pandemic that we are not safe unless we are all safe,” said John Nkengasong, a Cameroonian virologist who heads the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We are only as strong as the weakest link.”
Zimbabwe, which has imposed new lockdown measures because of a sharp rise in deaths and cases in the country of over 15 million people, has used just over a million of 1.7 million doses, blaming shortages in urban areas on logistical challenges.
Long lines form at centers such as Parirenyatwa Hospital, unlike months ago, when authorities were begging people to get vaccinated. Many are alarmed as winter sets in and the variant first identified in South Africa spreads in Harare, where young people crowd into betting houses, some with masks dangling from their chins and others without.
Also read: G-7 leaders agree on vaccines, China and taxing corporations
“Most people are not wearing masks. There is no social distancing. The only answer is a vaccine, but I can’t get it,” Maronjei said.
At the start of the pandemic, many deeply impoverished countries with weak health care systems appeared to have avoided the worst. That is changing.
“The sobering trajectory of surging cases should rouse everyone to urgent action,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, Africa director of the World Health Organization. “Public health measures must be scaled up fast to find, test, isolate and care for patients, and to quickly trace and isolate their contacts.”
New cases on the continent rose by nearly 30% in the past week, she said Thursday.
In Zambia, where a vaccination campaign has stalled, authorities reported that the country is running out of bottled oxygen. Sick people whose symptoms are not severe are being turned away by hospitals in Lusaka, the capital.
“When we reached the hospital, we were told there was no bed space for her,” Jane Bwalya said of her 70-year-old grandmother. “They told us to manage the disease from home. So we just went back home, and we are trying to give her whatever medicine can reduce the symptoms.”
Uganda is likewise fighting a sharp rise in cases and is seeing an array of variants. Authorities report that the surge is infecting more people in their 20s and 30s.
Intensive care units in and around the capital, Kampala, are almost full, and Misaki Wayengera, a doctor who heads a committee advising Uganda’s government, said some patients are “praying for someone to pass on” so that they can get an ICU bed.
Many Ugandans feel hopeless when they see the astronomical medical bills of patients emerging from intensive care. Some have turned to concoctions of boiled herbs for protection. On social media, suggestions include lemongrass and small flowering plants. That has raised fears of poisoning.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni imposed new restrictions this month that included closing all schools. But he avoided the extreme lockdown measures of last year, saying he didn’t want to hurt people’s livelihoods in a country with a vast informal sector.
Also read: S Korea pledges $200mn to provide vaccines in lower-income countries
For beauticians, restaurant workers and vendors in crowded open-air markets struggling to put food on the table, the threat from COVID-19 may be high, but taking even a day off when sick is a hardship. Testing costs $22 to $65, prohibitive for the working class.
“Unless I am feeling very sick, I wouldn’t waste all my money to go and test for COVID,” said Aisha Mbabazi, a waiter in a restaurant just outside Kampala.
The 28-year-old had a scare weeks ago, she said, noting that a COVID-19 infection could cost her the job if her employer found out. But she has been unable to get a shot.
“I really wanted the vaccine because for us, any time you can get COVID,” she said. “Even just touching the menu.”
Dr. Ian Clarke, who founded a hospital in Uganda, said that while vaccine demand is growing among the previously hesitant, “the downside is that we do not know when, or from where, we will get the next batch” of shots.
Africa has recorded more than 5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 135,000 deaths. That is a small fraction of the world’s caseload, but many fear the crisis could get much worse.
Nearly 90% of African countries are set to miss the global target of vaccinating 10% of their people by September, according to the World Health Organization.
One major problem is that COVAX, the U.N.-backed project to supply vaccine to poor corners of the world, is itself facing a serious shortage of vaccine.
Amid a global outcry over the gap between the haves and the have-nots, the U.S., Britain and the other Group of Seven wealthy nations agreed last week to share at least 1 billion doses with struggling countries over the next year, with deliveries starting in August.
Also read: UK to donate 100 mn coronavirus vaccine doses
In the meantime, many of the world’s poor wait and worry.
In Afghanistan, where a surge threatens to overwhelm a war-battered health system, 700,000 doses donated by China arrived over the weekend, and within hours, “people were fighting with each other to get to the front of the line,” said Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Ghulam Dastigir Nazari.
The vaccine rush is notable in a country where many question the reality of the virus and rarely wear masks or social distance, often mocking those who do.
At the end of May, approximately 600,000 Afghans had received at least one dose, or less than 2% of the population of 36 million. But the number of those fully vaccinated is minute — “so few I couldn’t even say any percentage,” according to Nazari.
In Haiti, hospitals are turning away patients as the country awaits its first shipment of vaccines. A major delivery via COVAX was delayed amid government concern over side effects and a lack of infrastructure to keep the doses properly refrigerated.
“I’m at risk every single day,” said Nacheline Nazon, a 22-year-old salesperson who takes a colorful, crowded bus known as a tap-tap to work at a clothing store in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, because that is all she can afford.
She said she wears a mask and washes her hands. If the vaccine becomes available, she said, “I’ll probably be the first one in line to get it.”
Dhaka calls for transparency in vaccine trade by US companies
Bangladesh Ambassador to the United States M. Shahidul Islam has called upon the US vaccine producing companies to exercise more openness and transparency in commercial export of vaccines to developing countries.
The Ambassador expressed hope to remain engaged with the US government and the private sector to secure adequate vaccines for the people of Bangladesh.
While appreciating US donation of vaccines to developing countries, the envoy opined that commercial procurement of vaccines will play a more important role in vaccinating a populous country like Bangladesh.
He was addressing a virtual town-hall discussion on Tuesday which was participated by officials of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, diplomats from the Embassy of Bangladesh in Washington DC, and representatives from various companies such as Uber, Chevron, General Electric, MetLife, Abbott, Boeing, PepsiCo, Google, Facebook.
President of the U.S.- Bangladesh Business Council Nisha Biswal delivered a welcome speech at the event.
Also read: Biotech's Covid vaccine to get conditional approval for human trials: BMRC
Pfizer, Sinopharm shots to start June 19: Health Minister
Bangladesh will start administering Sinopharm and Pfizer vaccine doses from June 19, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said on Monday.
“The vaccination drive will start with the number of vaccines available,” he said.
He also expressed worries over the deterioration of the pandemic situation in many places of the country.
Also read: Registered people will get Pfizer vaccine first, says health minister
“The situation is deteriorating in many places. People have to be aware. Hospital services will be disrupted if covid increases more as there is a shortage of hospital beds in some places,” he said.
“We have to emphasise more on prevention than cure,” he added.
A consignment of 600,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm jabs arrived here on Sunday, nine days after the arrival of the first batch of 500,000 doses gifted by Beijing.
Also read: Second consignment of Sinopharm vaccine arrives
Bangladesh has also received 100,620 doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine on June 1 .
The health minister earlier said that Pfizer vaccine shots will be given at four centres in Dhaka to those who have already registered.
Read Can I take COVID vaccines from two different brands?
Bangladesh loses 43 more lives to Covid-19, toll crosses 13,000
Covid-19 claimed 43 lives in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours until Friday morning as the upward march of the virus took the country's fatalities to 13,032.
The positivity rate which was 13.25% on Thursday – the highest in 46 days since April 25 this year – almost remained unchanged at 13.24%, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The country logged 2,454 new cases after testing 18,535 samples as the administration of the first dose of the vaccine remains suspended here since April 26.
The new number took Bangladesh's caseload to 822,849. However, the recovery rate and fatality rate remained unchanged at 92.59% and 1.58%.
Rajshahi division saw the highest fatalities during the period with the death of 11 people while Chattogram witnessed 10 deaths, Dhaka eight, Khulna seven, Rangpur four, Barishal two, and Mymensingh one.
Also read: Bangladesh to get over 10 lakh doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from COVAX: FM
Vaccination drive
So far, four vaccines – Oxford-AstraZeneca (Covishield), Sputnik-V, Sinopharm, and Pfizer-BioNTech – have got the approval for emergency use in Bangladesh.
WTO panel considers easing protections on COVID-19 vaccines
Envoys from World Trade Organization member nations are taking up a proposal to ease patents and other intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines to help developing countries fight the pandemic, an idea backed by the Biden administration but opposed in other wealthy countries with strong pharmaceutical industries.
On the table for a two-day meeting of a WTO panel opening Tuesday is a revised proposal presented by India and South Africa for a temporary IP waiver on coronavirus vaccines. The idea has drawn support from more than 60 countries, which now include the United States and China.
Some European Union member states oppose the idea, and the EU on Friday offered an alternative proposal that relies on existing World Trade Organization rules. The 27-nation bloc said those rules currently allow governments to grant production licenses — such as for COVID-19 vaccines or therapies — to manufacturers in their countries without the consent of the patent holders in times of emergency.
At stake in the meeting is whether the various sides can move toward drawing up a unified text, a key procedural step that could unlock accelerated negotiations. Inside observers cautioned, however, that a major breakthrough was not expected.
Also read: The Latest: WTO: Develop vaccines in Africa, Latin America
Even optimistic supporters acknowledge an IP waiver could take months to finalize because of solid resistance from some countries and WTO rules that require consensus on such decisions -- meaning a single country among the 164 members could scuttle any proposal. Even if adopted, ratification would also take time.
Advocacy groups, emboldened by the support the United States announced last month, have increasingly pushed the plan and insisted it would not be as difficult to carry out as detractors would say.
Doctors Without Borders, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian agency, faulted the European Union, Switzerland, Norway and other holdouts on the IP waiver idea Monday for employing alleged “delaying tactics.”
Pharmaceutical companies insist that an IP waiver could dampen the incentive for researchers and entrepreneurs to innovate and say vaccine-sharing by rich countries would be a much faster way to get shots to health workers and at-risk populations in the developing world.
Also read: World trade primed for strong but uneven recovery after Covid-19 shock: WTO
The World Health Organization has repeatedly inveighed against unequal access to vaccines, noting that rich countries scooped up supplies well in excess of the need of their own populations while developing countries have obtained only a small fraction of the doses so far distributed and injected worldwide.