Half a crore Covid shots arrive

Around 50 lakh more doses of Covid-19 Sinopharm vaccine reached Bangladesh from China early yesterday.

A flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, carrying the vaccines, landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 2:00am, Maidul Islam Prodhan, senior public relation officer of the health ministry, told The Daily Star.

Earlier on September 11, around 54 lakh doses of the Sinopharm vaccine arrived in Dhaka from China.

The vaccine jabs have come under the first agreement with the Chinese state-owned vaccine producer -- Beijing Bio-Institute of Biological Products Co Ltd, to purchase 1.5 crore vaccines.

Besides, the Cabinet Committee on Purchase on August 11 this year approved a proposal to procure more six crore more doses of Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine from China.

According to the officials, the Chinese company will start supplying those vaccines from November this year.

On January 27, Bangladesh kicked off the Covid-19 vaccination campaign with the Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield vaccine from the Serum Institute of India (SII).

Bangladesh purchased 3 crore doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from Serum. But the country has so far received only 70 lakh in two shipments, for which the mass vaccination campaign faced a huge setback.

Later, the government resumed the campaign with the vaccines from alternative sources -- China and the Covax facility.

35 DIED, 1190 INFECTED

The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) yesterday reported 35 deaths and 1,190 fresh cases of Covid-19.

With the latest count, the total number of deaths due to Covid-19 rose to 27,182 and the total cases to 1,541,300. The death rate was 1.76 percent.

Against a total of 19,668 tests yesterday, the positivity rate was 6.05 percent.

Of the deceased yesterday, 16 were male and 19 female. Of them, the highest 19 were in Dhaka division followed by six in Chattogram, three each in Rajshahi and Khulna, two in Sylhet, and one each in Rangpur and Barishal.