Another 6.2m US Covid jabs for Bangladesh

The United States has donated another 6.2 million (62 lakh) doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine to Bangladesh to help expand the vaccination coverage among the youth and hard-to-reach communities.

These latest donations via the COVAX initiative bring the total US government vaccine contribution to more than 51 million (5.1 crore) doses, with many millions more scheduled to arrive in the coming months.

“We applaud the government of Bangladesh for recently surpassing the milestone of reaching 100 million people with at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.  The United States will continue to donate life-saving vaccines and provide support to help Bangladesh reach the goal of fully vaccinating 70% of the country by the middle of 2022,” US Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Helen LaFave said on Tuesday.

In addition to vaccine donations, the US continues to work closely with Bangladesh to support the national Covid-19 vaccination campaign. 

The US has provided training to over 7,000 healthcare providers on proper vaccination management, supported cold-chain storage and transportation, and assisted with targeted campaigns to vaccinate students and hard-to-reach people. 

To date, the US has contributed over $121 million in Covid-related development and humanitarian assistance through the US Agency for International Development, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

This assistance has saved lives and treated individuals infected with Covid-19, strengthened testing capacity and monitoring, enhanced case management and infection prevention and control practices, and improved supply chain and logistics management systems. 

The US support has also protected frontline workers and increased the public’s knowledge on how to better protect themselves from infection.

The US has donated $4 billion to support the worldwide COVAX effort, which includes support for ultra-cold chain storage, transportation, and safe handling of Covid-19 vaccines, making the country the world’s largest donor for equitable global corona vaccine access.