In another promising effort to bolster the vaccination drive in Bangladesh, a tripartite deal was signed between the Bangladesh government, local drug manufacturing company Incepta Pharmaceuticals, and China's Sinopharm for the co-production of Covid-19 vaccines.
On Monday (August 16), the Memorandum of Association (MoU) was signed by Health Minister Zahid Maleque, Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming, and Incepta Chairman Abdul Muktadir.
According to the MoU, each month the vaccine production unit of Incepta in Dhaka will disseminate 50 lakh doses of Sinopharm vaccine
The signing ceremony took place at the Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons in the capital’s Mohakhali.
To make the vaccine affordable to the local market, starting from procuring vaccine production materials in bulk, factory processing such as bottling and labelling, would be done by Incepta Pharmaceuticals.
In order to implement Bangladesh’s goal to vaccinate a large chunk of the population within a short period, local pharmaceutical companies will start producing vaccines soon, stated the signed agreement.
According to experts, as Bangladesh has plans to inoculate the remote demographics in the country, Sinopharm vaccine would fare better in line with the government’s mass vaccine administration endeavours as the vaccine has easier storage options in comparison with other Covid-19 vaccine doses.
‘Vaccines should be global public good’
In the MoU signing ceremony the Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming emphasized on the tracing of the origins of coronavirus and said it could be a key finding to help us understand future pandemics. “China believes that tracing the origin of the virus is very important and it could give us clues to predict and prevent future pandemic”, said he.
He also clarified his stance regarding the tracing of Covid-19 origins. Meanwhile, he condemned the politicization of the studies to trace the origin of the virus, which is being targeted to ‘exhaust China’s diplomatic resources’.
“What we oppose is origin studies based on politics and using politicized origin tracing as a tool to exhaust China’s diplomatic resources”, he added.
The Ambassador has also thanked Bangladesh for joining China in the anti-pandemic cooperation in his speech. Moreover, he reinstated that his country believes ‘vaccines should be global public good’ and thus they are carrying out efforts to ensure vaccine accessibility for all.
Earlier on Friday (August 13), Bangladesh received the third consignment from China comprising 10 lakh doses of Sinopharm jabs.
The latest consignment was sent from China to Bangladesh as gift.
The Bangladesh government has also purchased 150 lakh doses of Sinopharm vaccines from China, of which 70 lakh doses has also arrived in the country.
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