Bangladesh has received 2.4 million more Pfizer vaccine jabs donated by the United States under the COVAX facility. As many as 24,90,780 doses of Pfizer vaccines arrived at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 8:27 am on Sunday, according to a press release from the Health Ministry. Read: Pfizer pill becomes 1st US-authorized home COVID treatment Another shipment of 4.6 million Pfizer vaccine jabs is scheduled to reach Bangladesh on January 10, the release added. Bangladesh started administering booster doses with the Pfizer vaccine from December 28. So far, 35,738 booster doses were administered with the Pfizer vaccine as of Saturday. Meanwhile, 61,29,539 people received the first dose with the Pfizer vaccine while 17,45,996 received the second dose with the Pfizer vaccine as of Saturday. Read: Pfizer tests extra COVID shot for kids under 5 in setback The United States is also working closely with Bangladesh to support the national Covid-19 vaccination campaign and strengthen the government’s response to the 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 US administration has declared another 14 million Pfizer vaccine doses for Bangladesh under the COVAX Facility, said Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Thursday. "It's good news," he said in a message from Paris mentioning that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken moderated a high-level ministerial virtual meeting on Covid-19 and beyond on Wednesday. Read: Pfizer asks FDA to OK COVID-19 booster shots for all adults The Bangladesh Foreign Minister and his 25 other counterparts took part in it. Bangladesh demanded that vaccines be made public good affordable to all countries, and pharmaceutical companies like that of Bangladesh be encouraged and assisted to produce it locally. Dr Momen disclosed that Bangladesh has distributed 78 million doses, including the first dose of 46 million and 32 million as the second dose. Read:Pfizer says COVID-19 pill cut hospital, death risk by 90% He said Bangladesh needs more doses to vaccinate at least 80% of their 165 million people. The good news is, Dr Momen said, the Covid-19 infection rate in Bangladesh is now around 1% as only two people died yesterday and the day before yesterday only one died of Covid-19.