17 lakh more Sinopharm vaccine doses arrive

Seventeen lakh more doses of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine purchased by the Bangladesh government have reached Dhaka.

A flight carrying the jabs landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 7:15pm on Tuesday, said Health and Family Welfare Ministry's public relations officer Maidul Islam Pradhan. 

Dr Faruk Ahmed, the medical officer of Communicable Diseases Control at the Directorate General of Health Services, received the consignment at the airport, he said.

Earlier, as many as 70 lakh vaccine jabs of the Chinese state-owned enterprise bought by the government arrived here in three phases respectively on July 30, 17, and 3.

Apart from this, China gifted Bangladesh around 11 lakh vaccine doses of the firm in May.

MU/SU